^ 




THE 

CULTURE AND DISEASES 

OF 

THE PEACH; 

A COMPLETE TREATISE 

FOR THB 

USE OF PEACH GROWERS AND GARDENERS, 

OK 

PENNSYLVANIA, 

AND ALL 

DISTRICTS AFFECTED BY THE "YELLOWS," 

AND 

OTHER DISEASES OF THE TREE. 



i-r 



Cj^l BY JOHN RUTTER, 

^ West Chester, Pa. 

Ex-President of the Chester County Horticultural Society and 
Honorary Member of the Penn^jdjsania 

Fruit Growers' SocJ^^rTof > . 

- >v<7.. .^v.l^.v}..S'...c:- 



HARRISBUKG, PA?^^^^^, -^ 

EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT OFFICE. 

1880. 




ir 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

JOHN RUTTER, 
in the OflBce of tlie Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



^J> 



?.^\ 



^^ 



INTRODUCTORY. 



•:o: 



A desire to see the great State of Pennsyl- 
vania, and more especially its rich and fertile 
districts east of the mountains, engaged in the 
cultivation of the Peach, and supplying the 
markets of its cities with this luscious fruit, 
instead of spending thousands of dollars an- 
nually for the benefit of the peach growers of 
Delaware and Maryland, is the impulse that 
prompted me to write the following pages, and 
to present them to the public. 

It is well known that the Peach would be 
extensively cultivated in this State, did not the 
fatal disease, the Yellows, prevent its success- 
ful cultivation. My long experience in the cul- 
tivation of this fruit gives me the passport to a 
correct knowledge of this disease, and how to 



IV 



prevent it. In these pages will be found the 
results of my experience, and the description 
of successful manipulation of the peach orchard 
to combat its diseases. 

If these instructions are followed out by our 
farmers and fruit growers generally, the day is 
not far distant when Eastern Pennsylvania will 
supply the markets of Philadelphia and New 
York with better peaches than now come from 
the celebrated peach districts of Delaware and 
Maryland. 

JOHN RUTTER. 

West Chester, March 1 , 1880. 



THE PEACH AND ITS DISEASES. 



IT is universally admitted that the Peach is 
regarded as the most delicious, popular, and highly 
esteemed of all the summer and fall fruits grown 
within the limits of our temporate climate and par- 
ticularly within the Middle States. It was intro* 
duced by the early settlers of the country at different 
places and at different periods, from 1650 to 1680^ 
taking rank with the apple and the small fruits 
around the rustic habitations, adding its rich tribute 
to the scanty luxuries of these heroic pioneers in 
our American forests. Keeping pace with the suc- 
cessive settlements of the country, by the hardy 
adventurers of almost every nation, it became in- 
dispensible to the garden and orchard — -.these Edens 
of their primitive homes. The tree grew in the 
newly upturned virgin soil of the country in great 
vigor and fruitfulness, from Massachusetts to the 
extreme settlements in the South, giving the most 
unmistakable evidence of its adaptability to the soil 
and climate of its new location, reveling for the time 
under the shelter and protection of the forests, and 



6 THE PEACH 

free from all insect depredations or injury from 
disease, and rivaling in growth and productiveness 
the famed orchards of Persia and China, the reputed 
countries of its birth. 

Such is its great excellence from improved va- 
rieties now cultivated and known to the country^ 
and as exposed in our markets daily through the 
season of its maturity, that we can scarcely be 
charged with undue enthusiasm in rating the su- 
perior qualities of the Peach — its lusciousness of 
taste and great beauty of color — by uniting in our 
praise with the old Pomologists "that it excels all 
other fruits of the earth," It has been aptly said 
that no fruit this side of Paradise has ever rivaled 
it, and as a wholesome fruit of the season it has the 
highest character from the medical profession. Half 
acentury ago the expression was often quoted " that 
a basket of healthy ripe Peaches in the market was 
worth more than a pound of calomel in the shop, 
and that it robbed the doctor of a patient and the 
druggist of a prescription." In its adaptability to 
the soil and climate of the United States the Peach 
is assigned the widest range of any other fruit, and 
such is the estimation in which it is everywhere 
held, that even in countries beyond its climatic limits 
of open culture, it finds a place in the orchard house 
forced under glass or on the trellis against a south. 
ern wall, under the care and skill of the expert 
gardener, and is considered the greatest luxury of the 
season. So well is this fruit known throughout the 



AND ITS DISEASE. 7 

country and especially in Pennsylvania, that it 
would be but a repetition of what we already know 
to go into any detail of its history, other than in 
connection with the injuries and diseases to which 
it is subject, and particularly as affecting us here 
in Pennsylvania, within reach of the markets of 
Philadelphia and New York. In this connection I 
use the words injuries and diseases, as it is gen' 
erally believed that the poach tree is specially sub' 
ject to injuries and diseases over and above all other 
varieties of fruit trees common to our gardens and 
orchards. In removing this delusion I am pleased 
to be able to say — that from my experience in the 
cultivation of this fruit in Pennsylvania, Delaware 
and Maryland, which has been quite extensive, and 
from my personal observations over a region ex- 
tendings from New York to Florida — which obser- 
vations have neither been casual nor limited in all 
this range of a varied soil and climate — I have seen 
and learned of but one disease destructive to the 
tree, and that is the specific disease termed the 
"yellows," and one as fatal to the Peach as yellow 
fever is to the human race, calling for a specific 
remedy or preventative to arrest its progress. All 
other causes affecting the peach tree are but slightly 
injurious and of but little account, and are found 
prevailing as well in what is considered the healthy 
peach districts in Southern Maryland, and further 
south, where the tree now stands in thrifty growth 
and productiveness, having attained a size of from 



8 THE PEACH 

one to two feet and over in diameter, and an age 
of from fifty to one hundred years. The injuries 
caused by the Peach borer and small insects that 
infest the bark and the leaves are mythical in com- 
parison with the " yellows," a disease from which 
it has been said none survive. The borer for a long 
time was considered the active agent in causing the 
yellows. This opinion however has been long since 
exploded. His sharp cuttin g mandibles are as clear 
of communicating disease as the clean steel of the 
sharp instrument that follows him with unerring 
fatality to his rather insecure quarters at the root of 
the tree. The borer has been long enough the scape 
goat for the true " murderer," and although he is 
a most audacious sneak thief to the peach orchard, 
he carries no contagion or infection with him in his 
depredations in supplying his wants and gratifying 
his appetite. He makes no effort to escape our 
vigilance, but is always found at the scene of his 
depredations, and is as easily captured in Pennsyl- 
vania as in the great peach centres in Delaware and 
Maryland, the fields of his greatest success. In 
healthy and unhealthy districts as well as in healthy 
and unhealthy trees the borer is found and no place 
escapes him. He has no East, no West, no North 
no South — he is the autocrat of his empire eating 
out the substance of his people. 

We will here for the present knowing his haunts 
and how to counteract and prevent his depredations 
leave him and turn our attention to the greater evil 



AND ITS DISEASE. 9 

which prevails in the Eastern, Western and North- 
ern States, and see what the scientific detectives 
have done and are now doing to discover the cause 
of the great ravages he has made in the peach 
orchard. 

In placing this enemy in the category of those 
diseases which have been and continue to be so de- 
fiant to the advances of scientific investigation, let 
us still apply a due portion of attention in this di- 
rection in our comparison of the ravages of diseases 
that are counterpart to this one in animal life; such 
for example, as the pleuropneumonia in cattle, 
trichina in pork, rot and scab in sheep, rabies in 
that intolerable nuisance the dog, pleurisy and the 
hundred diseases the horse is subject to, and all the 
complicated ills of the human system where so 
many malign causes are constantly at work, baffling 
ages of professional research, and out of it all there 
come to us only palliatives and seldom any specific 
cures as a grand result in discovery. 

Our Pomological writers in succession for the last 
half century, have gravely informed us that the 
Peach tree is short-lived in the North — a fact of 
which we all have been fully aware under its treat- 
ment with only a few exceptions against the pro- 
verbial rule, and our memory fails to carry us back 
to a different state of affairs. In the South however 
we find the reverse; and such too was the case in 
the North, for a century and more, after the intro- 
duction of the Peach into this country, and even 



10 THE PEACH 

now ia healthy districts it grows to an old age, re- 
taining its thriftiness for fifty and a hundred years, 
thus virtually giving it the character of a longlived 
tree. These facts alone fully demonstrate that the 
cause producing the change to a dwarfed size and 
short life, has not arisen from any want of adapta- 
bility in soil and climate, but is occasioned by dis- 
ease to which we shall presently more fully refer. 
In order to reach our present object — which is to 
show that peaches in Pennsylvania and in the 
Middle States can be grown in orchard culture, as a 
branch of farm industry with greater success and 
to more profit to the producer, than they are now 
raised in Maryland and Delaware, or indeed in any 
of the peach districts farther South under a system 
of proper culture,! may here say this has been done 
for years and fairly tested with the same careful 
culture as in the peach districts of Southern Mary- 
land. In showing this state of facts we will first 
present the early records reaching back to the first 
appearance of the fatal disease, in as brief a manner 
as possible to be intelligent. To do this, we must 
trace its progress and the course of examinations 
which have been made looking to the cause and the 
results obtained therefrom. 

It is said that this disease — the yellows — made 
its first appearance in the neighborhood of Phila- 
delphia. As to the truth of this declaration, the 
evidence is not at all clear. The first public notice 
on the subject we find in a communication made by 



AND ITS DISEASE. 11 

Judge Kicbard Peters, President of the Philadelphia 
Agricultural Society, dated February 11, 1806, and 
published in the transactions of that Society — 
which was instituted in 1785, From this carefully 
prepared article, it is evident that the Judge took a 
deep interest in the growth and cultivation of the 
Peach. He states " I know not in the catalogue of 
our trees, one more desirable, nor one more subject 
to mortijScation, decay and disease than the Peach. 
I have cultivated it from my early youth — abou* 
fifty years ago on the farm on which I now reside, 
my father had large peach orchards which yielded 
abundantly and they so continued for years, pro- 
ducing plentiful crops with but little attention — 
then the trees began nearly at once to sicken and 
finally perish. I have often found sick trees to in- 
fect those in vigor near them by some morbid 
effluvia." In this communication, Judge Peters 
refers to a plantation of 700 to 800 trees of natural 
fruit, which he calls an extensive orchard, and plant- 
ed by Mr. Edward Heston, (near He3tonville,West 
Philadelphia, and near what is known as the Cen- 
tennial grounds) on rather flat clay land, and states 
" that Mr. Heston begins to suffer by the disease I 
call yellows." Following up his observations in 
the progress of this disease in Mr. Heston's orchard ^ 
in September, 1807, he writes, *' as I predicted the 
yellows are seen making destructive ravages in Mr- 
Heston's peach plantation. I have lost a great pro- 
portion of my trees by the same malady. This year 



12 THE PEACH 

some of them were young and vigorous but we have 
had two successive rainy seasons, and I do not re- 
collect ever to have seen more general destruction 
among peach trees through the whole of the 
country. It seems evident that excessive moisture 
is one if not the primary cause of this irresistible 
disease." 

I may here remark that my observations fully 
confirm this statement that wet seasons do favor 
the production of disease. The summer of 1878 
was a wet season at West Chester, Pa., and in the 
immediate neighborhood, and I observed that the 
yellows was more than usually destructive among 
peach trees that had been cultivated in the usual 
careless way, or rather not cultivated at all. 

Again, in Nov. 1807, Judge Peters, commenting 
on a letter he had received from Dr. Tilton, of Wil- 
mington, Delaware, says, " I still think that the 
disease so generally fatal (more so this year than 
any other in my memory,) called the yellows is at- 
mospheric. I have always considered mildew and 
blight as originating in atmospheric taint, yet Sir 
Joseph Banks asserts that parasitical fungi^ and 
others affirm, that insects are the causes. I believe 
with much deference to authority so respectable, 
that fungi originate and insects breed in morbid 
juices and extravasated sap after the 2^lcint has he. 
come sickly y 

In his day Sir Joseph Banks was one of the most 
astute and accomplished naturalists England pos 



AND ITS DISEASE. 13 

sessed, and he had given his attention to the inves- 
tigation of the injurious parasite fungi of the king- 
dom, and he likewise presented a learned report on 
the causes of blight, mildew and rust in grain, and 
the discoveries he then made have been fully con- 
firmed by subsequent scientific investigation. — 
Parasitic fungi are a cause of injury and fina 
destruction to healthy vegetable matter, as much 
so as the depredations made by insects, and as to 
Judge Peters *' atmospheric taint," being a cause, it 
is about as lucid as the opinions of some of the old 
vegetable Physiologists, in assigning vitiated and 
extravasated sap as the direct cause of disease. The 
question behind it all would be what caused the 
taint ; and what caused the extravasation of the 
sap — the hearts blood of the vegetable system ? In 
the first place it might have been from a floating 
parasite fungi spore, or an infusoria in the atmos- 
phere, but in that case "tainted" atmosphere would 
be a misnomer ; and in the second place various 
causes might be at work through infusoria or fungi 
to produce extravasated sap and obstruct the natu- 
ral channels of circulation. Sir Joseph Banks wa& 
correct in his fungi theory, as was proven by his 
and other practical tests — a discovery conferring nO' 
doubt lasting advantages to the grain growing inter- 
ests of the kingdom of Great Britain. The tree or 
the plant, to continue its growth and development 
requires a free and unobstructed circulation of pure 



14 THE PEACH 

sap, conveying the pabulum of life suitable to its 
taste and physical constitution. 

Dr. Tilton, of Wilmington, Delaware, in his cor- 
respondence with Judge Peters, Nov. 6, 1807, wrote 
as follows, " the disease and early death of our Peach 
trees is a fertile source of observation, and that in 
all the diseases of the Peach I have examined, it 
appears to me that insects do the mischief. The 
curling of the leaf, the boring of the bark, the de- 
struction of the root, the premature ripening of the 
fruit, all proceed from insects, and even the sickly 
appearance of the tree called yellows is attributed 
to insects by a late writer in our newspaper ! In 
my jaunt in Maryland, I was attentive to the sub- 
ject of your letter. I found that peach trees were 
generally long lived, healthy and bore well. In 
Edward Lloyd's garden, I observed some of the trees 
fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter and perfectly 
healthy." 

From these publications it seems that the exper- 
iments by Peters, and others, in the application of 
supposed cures and remedies were applied empiri- 
cally, and opinions were expressed based only on 
slight indications, and hence errors and failures were 
the result. These gentlemen and others connected 
with their learned society, standing then as they did 
the living fingerposts, directing the course in which 
public sentiment and public action should travel, 
rather discouraged than otherwise, perseverance of 
investigation into the causes of the troubles in 



AND ITS DISEASE. 15 

peach growing, by advising farmers to let hazard- 
ous cultivation be collateral and subordinate, and 
apply their main strength to other employment 
more certain and equally profitable ; concluding 
that peach trees could not be profitably cultivated 
on an extensive senile in that part of the country, 
that a succession of Peaches might be kept up for 
domestic use by " planting a few trees every year," 
and thus a death blow was given to general peach 
growing on a large scale, and it has only since been 
encouraged by the direction to plant a few Peach 
trees about the garden and buildings, and this has 
been observed in Eastern Pennsylvania to the pres- 
ent day, as one of the oracular sayings of the savants 
of that period. This pretext for the encouragement 
of our lazy indulgences without further effort to 
master the difficulties that beset us, and giving our 
time and attention to other departments of farming 
requiring less thought — giving us less profit and 
more labor — is the legacy left us by these waiters 
and in our farming interests we are consoled with 
the dangerous doctrine that in our economic and 
domestic prosperity many things within our capa- 
city to acquire by our own industry on the farms 
are cheaper to buy than to raise, thereby reversing 
the old maxim " that a penny saved is a penny 
earned," and just here for the want of a little more 
brain, a little labor, and another step higher up the 
ladder of energy, Pennsylvania is not only hand 
ing over annually, pennies, but millions of gold to 



16 THE PEACH 

her next neighbors, Delaware and Maryland, for 
products which she has the ability to raise in her 
soil and under almost the same climate, with the 
advantage of closer proximity to the great marts 
of consumption. In three or four short years with 
a proper application of common industry to this 
branch of fruit growing, the counties of Delaware 
Chester, Lancaster, Montgomery, Bucks and Berks 
alone would be able to relieve us of our dependence 
on our neighbors in the supply of these luxuries at 
least, for which we now pay so dearly. In looking 
to a renewed energy and a more improved and en- 
lightened home industry in this direction, the time 
is not distant when these counties will emerge from 
their present condition in peach growing, and in- 
stead of mourning yearly over a few straggling, 
yellow dying trees about the dwelling, we shall see 
the thrifty, blooming productive orchard, adding its 
golden fruit to swell the profits of the farm, and 
contributing to the luxuries and comforts of home. 
The Peach now so shamefully neglected is not a new 
fruit to Pennsylvania, and the tree is no stranger 
to our productive soil and genial climate. It has 
been a servant and a good one, responding faithfully 
to our domestic culture for the last two hundred 
years wherever cared for, cultivated and protected, 
and often under our disgraceful neglect its ener- 
gies and fruitfulness have only yielded to the visi- 
tation of a fell disease which it was our duty as well 
as our interest to endeavor to counteract, as we 



AND ITS DISEASE. 17 

would the diseases in our faithful animals depend- 
ent upon us for support and protection, in return 
for a short life of labor in our fields. Let us in this 
strain turn to our Bibles, and learn again the price 
of good fruit at the Creation, as fixed by the Deity 
himself, and despair not. The injunction we there 
find is, " dress the garden and keep it." Can any 
one expect to obtain such a luxury as the Peach at 
a less price ? In looking over that portion of the 
district of Eastern Pennsylvania, extending from 
the mountains to the Delaware river, we find but 
few who have regarded this injunction, while ail 
others have rather followed the advice of Judge 
Peters, " to plant a few trees every year," and we 
have in this way kept up a kind of diseased perpet 
uity in the few yellow skeletons which have or- 
namented our habitations and surroundings for 
almost the past century. Let every farmer who 
has his own broad acres to cultivate, and every 
house keeper who has his garden to till, no matter 
how limited, read their own rebuke ; not only in 
their diseased and sickly trees, but in the crowded 
markets of their own city, teeming in season with 
this delicious product which their industry should 
have supplied; and take wisdom for the future. 
We might here also awaken our languid interests 
by reading the parable of the vineyard, wherein 
idleness is called to industry, in the question, ''Why 
stand ye here all the day idle ?" It is quite evi- 
dent that in Chester county, and it may be so in 



18 THE PEACH 

the adjoining counties, to wbicli we have referred, 
that peach growing has increased but little in the 
past twenty years, and that from all the informa- 
tion we have obtained we have not advanced until 
lately, towards a settlement of the cause of the fell 
disease. In coming down to a more recent date we 
find that it is the old story repeated, and like all 
other ills and diseases, it keSps pace with the spread 
and extended settlement of the country. In every 
direction except toward the South, where its rav- 
ages have never extended, do we hear of its de- 
structive influences. Many of the Western Statesr 
and especially those bordering on the region of the 
great lakes, as, for example, Wisconsin and Michi- 
gan, have gone extensively into peach growing for 
the purpose of supplying the markets of Chicago, 
and the other cities and towns of the great North- 
west, and all complain of the ravages of the "yel- 
lows." The Legislature of Michigan has given the 
peach growers an act to prevent the spread of the 
disease, compelling the eradication of all trees from 
the orchard, when they present the first appearance 
of disease. This plan of ridding the orchards of 
diseased trees, cuts off its spread by contagion 
which, as a rule, passes so rapidly over an orchard 
to the destruction of the healthy trees, and is one 
of the means for retarding its progress. This spe- 
cies of legislation is similar to that we have here 
in Pennsylvania, to prevent the spread of noxious 
weeds by enforcing the destructiou of the plant be- 



AND ITS DISEASE. 19 

fore it matures its seed, the one plan removing tlie 
source of complaint through the destruction of the 
seed, and the other attaining the same object, if 
fungi is the cause of the spread of the disease. 
Some of our leading pomologists have from time to 
time, indulged in the notion that the " yellows " has 
had its day, and as late as the year 1873, one of the 
most prominent, in an address, informed us "that 
he was happy to say that the "yellows" is almost 
a thing of the past, and in many sections of our 
State (Pennsylvania), where the scourge held undis- 
puted sway but a few short years ago, to-day can 
be seen healthy, thriving orchards, and consequent- 
ly annual crops of delicious fruit. What is there 
in the season just passed to make it a marked epoch 
in the history of fruit culture? Is it not owing in 
a great measure to the peculiar temperature and 
possible lack of humidity in the atmosphere ?" 

These apparent cessations and almost entire dis- 
appearance of the disease in certain districts, for 
short periods of dry seasons are but mere tempo- 
rar}^ lulls in the ravages of the disease from sus- 
pended infectious malaria, inspiring the hope that 
in a short time it would become one of the " things 
of the past," but a returning season or two of fa- 
vorable influences for the propagation of the dis- 
ease, and all hope is dispelled by its renewed viru- 
lence. These appearances were noted in 1807, by 
that noted fruit grower — especially of the Peach — 
to whom I have already referred, Judge Peters, of 



20 THE PEACH 

Philadelphia, and in a postscript to his letter we 
find the following: "We have had two successive 
rainy seasons, and I do not recollect ever to have 
seen more general destruction among peacli trees 
through the whole of the country. It seems that 
excessive moisture is one, if not the primary cause, 
of this irresistible disease." 

These coincidences of rainy seasons and the yel- 
lows among peach trees over the country, I have 
observed for years as marked in these alternations 
of weather, favoring the now general opinion of the 
cause of the disease as I have already remarked. 
Thomas Taylor, the microscopist of the Agricul- 
tural Department, Washington City, as published 
in the Agricultural Report of the year 1872, page 
169, makes the following statement, "since contact 
with water dissolves this form of Nneraosporo, v/z : 
" Parasitic Fungi," without destroying the life of 
the spores, it is evident that the action of rain or 
washes of pure water will only tend to diffuse the 
spores over the body of the tree and roots, while 
the application of solutions of sulphuric acid and 
alkalies will destroy them." 

There are strong confirmatory facts favoring the 
theory of " Fungi " as being the cause of disease, 
and that alkaline substances, such as [caustic lime 
and potash are the proper substances as curatives 
for the disease, and with necessary precaution in 
the application of caustic lime, the destruction of 
the diseased agent is effected in a cheap and expe- 



AND ITS DISEASE. 21 

ditious way, or the same end is accomplislied in tlie 
application of ashes to tlie entire surface of the or- 
chard. The trees introduced from the nursery, al- 
ready diseased, when such disease shall appear, 
should be wed out and replaced by healthy young 
trees, first renovating the soil with an application 
of caustic lime, potash, or other strong alkaline 
substances. 

My main object here is to satisfy the agricul- 
tural interests of Pennsylvania that peaches can be 
grown in the State on a scale commensurate with 
the demands of our cities and towns, in orchard 
culture, in larger quantities than they are now or 
can be raised in the most favored districts of Dela- 
ware or Maryland, and can be sent into our mar- 
kets in better condition and at a much larger profit. 
As this is a declaration so entirely in conflict with 
the opinions of our people in Eastern Pennsylva- 
nia, I feel myself called upon to sustain the asser- 
tion in a very practical way, showing that what has 
been done for years can be done again throughout 
this and other States, all things being equal, and 
the recommendations here strictly observed — re- 
commendations based on practical experience in 
peach culture for thirty-five years, in what is called 
the diseased peach district in Pennsylvania, and in 
the healthy districts on the Eastern shore of Mary- 
land, cultivating and planting within that period 
from 25,000 to 80,000 trees ; also an earlier expe- 
rience in raising peaches in the State of Delaware, 



22 THE PEACH 

but on a smaller scale. And I may here repeat, 
that the accumulated evidence of all this period is 
fully and most overwhelmingly confirmatory of the 
declaration with which I set out. I was brought 
up from early boyhood in the apple and peach or- 
chards of Delaware, and took my first lessons in 
grafting from an old almanac, and a knowledge of 
inoculating trees under the instruction of a good 
old neighboring Methodist exhorter. 

Through these instrumentalities I became some- 
thing of a pomologist of that early day — of a large 
country and small towns — and acquired a neigh- 
borhood reputation in the profession, but in a short 
time domestic changes took place, and I was called 
to other employments, carrying with me into Penn- 
sylvania my taste and love for fruit culture, and 
particularly for my early favorite fruit, the Peach. 

Some years after niy location in West Chester, 
Pa., I made purchase of a farm on the " Mica Slate 
Kidge," some two and one-half miles north of the 
town. This ridge was known as the " Barrens," 
and the purchase was what, at this day, would be 
called a worn out-farm, but it Avas what I consid- 
ered a miserably neglected one. Most of the farm 
land was out in " commons," and a range for road 
stock, under a crop of briars, and poverty grass. 

The prospect was gloomy enough for making out 
of it anything by ordinary farming, unle'ss by a 
heavy out-lay in fertilizers, and the aid of a doubt- 
ful tenant. It occurred to me, as it was near West 



AND ITS DISEASE. 23 

Chester, then a fair market even for foreign peaches, 
upon which we were depending, that it would be 
the best scheme for me to plant this land in peach 
trees, which, if successful, would give me a double 
advantage ; first, by improving the land, and giving 
a crop of fruit for the market. In a proper routine 
of peach culture yearly, poor or medium land 
greatly improves; plowing down *the weeds and 
stuff that springs up in the summer, with the foli- 
age of the trees in the fall, is almost equal to a 
light coat of manure. Having fnlly determined on 
this course, against the ridicule of some and the 
remonstrance of other friends, with the old stereo- 
typed declaration. " You can't raise peaches in Ches- 
ter county," backed up by directing my attention 
to the hundreds of skeleton trees, dead and dying, 
about the yards and gardens of the town, and 
around the dwellings of the neighborhood, I went 
to work. All this was no terror t^ me, as I bad 
seen it all in my younger days, in Upper Dela- 
Avare, and I had enquired into the cause of it. If 
you want healthy peaches, do not plant your trees 
about a farm house, or in a farm garden, if it is an 
old one, unless you know of a proper system of 
renovation ; for peach trees have been planted there 
from time immemorial, and in planting young trees, 
as many do every year or two, and on the very 
graves of a dozen predecessors, all of whom have 
died in rapid succession with the yellows, leaving 
the ground filled with the seeds of the disease, to 



24 THE PEACH 

seize on its new victim, is in effect courting failure. 
Indeed, even about modern houses, where but few 
trees have been planted, in nine cases out of ten, 
where a new tree is introduced, you will find two 
or three in the neighborhood perhaps in the last 
stages of disease, and through their poisonous con- 
tagion, or sporadic infection, if left in the ground, 
they will inoculate your young trees with disease 
the first season. To renovate the soil we must use 
caustic or quick lime, wood ashes, guano, poudrette 
or other alkalies, in sufficient quantity to destroy 
or neutralize the active agent in the soil, ready at 
all times to commit its ravages on the young trees 
— its natural food — and with this precaution, all 
trees affcscted by the yellows, which, from my de- 
scription under the proper heading, may be recog- 
nized, must be removed, body and branch, and 
the earth renovated before replacing it with a young 
tree. In rejecting all the kind counsels of my 
friends, and feeling that I could bear the jocular re- 
marks of others, I set myself to work, taking up 
everything that I could get my hands on, touching 
the subject; of the disease of the tree, the only 
thing that could interfere to. prevent my success. 
From my schooling in the orchard, in boyhood, 
knowing the routine of peach growing, in a rough 
way, having occasionally visited the mammoth or- 
chards at Delaware city, and below, I had but one 
point in the whole field of peach growing to exam- 
ine, and that was to find a preventative, or at least a 



AND ITS DISEASE. 25 

palliative for the yellows. The peach borer, the 
curled leaf, and other things, in their feeble efforts, 
were mere myths compared with this one fatal 
scourge. In the course of my examinations, I 
found much good common sense and a good deal 
of nonsense on the subject, and as a specimen of 
the latter, I here give one or two little extracts, as 
they are from the brain of a Professor of Agricul- 
ture, Horticulture and Botany, in 1819 : "There is 
b\it one stock proper whereon to bud peaches, 
which is the muscle plum, all other stocks are at- 
tacked by the gum^ and by different species of in- 
sects^ in particular the grub, an hexipode magot, 
which gets in between the cortex and the albumen, 
and prevents the sap from circulating, and pro- 
duces what is commonly called the yellows." 

"If the trees are injured with mildeio, dip the 
branches infected in the liquid and it will imme- 
diately destroy the insect.''^ 

" If your orchards are troubled with mole hills, 
strew branches of elder about the ground, and they 
will soon disappear." " If you are troubled with 
snakes, plant ash around your orchard." 

The most sensible articles I met with wera the 
various letters and papers of Judge Peters, and cor- 
respondence gathering facts in relation to the dis- 
ease, and particularly his reference to the investi- 
gations of Sir Joseph Banks, in his inquiries into 
the cause of blight, mildew and rust, which be 
found to be the result of parasitic fungi, and by 



26 THE PEACH 

fair analogy, the Judge considered it in connection 
with his inquiry into the cause of the yellows, but 
he differed with Sir Joseph in his correct conclu- 
sions, that fungi was the cause of the disease, and 
not the effect, and produced disease in healthy liv- 
ing vegetable matter. These conclusions, it seems 
to me, leave no room for doubt. Knowing that 
moss, lichens, fungi and vegetable matter were de- 
stroyed by caustic lime and potash, I concluded 
that a good coat of caustic lime, which was less 
expensive than ashes, could do no harm to the trees, 
at least if it did no good. So I ordered fifty bush- 
els to the acre for t>venty acres, but fortunately, 
through some mistake, seventy-five bushels to the 
acre were sent, and it was all spread, the land be- 
ing first broken up deep, and well harrowed, and 
the lime, after spreading, harrowed in. The rows 
were struck eighteen by eighteen feet apart, of the 
depth of the original plowing; this, at the inter- 
section of the cross-checking, made a place for each 
tree,/ only wanting a little levelling of the earth to 
receive them. One thousand trees were planted in 
the best part of the plot — if there was any best 
part to it. The ground in peaches was planted in 
corn, and the balance of the field sown down in 
oats and clover, and the corn, after the last dress- 
ing in the peach lot, was also sown down with 
clover. The following spring all the field was 
plowed down, and the balance planted with peach 
trees, with other lands, making up 5,000 trees, and 



AND ITS DISEASE. 27 

all the land constituting the twenty acre field was 
planted in corn, manured in the hill with ashes, 
yard scrapings, &c., gathered about the barn. The 
other field, receiving the balance of the 4,000 trees, 
planted that spring, was treated as above described, 
except that the lime was reduced to fifty bushels 
per acre. After the second year the cropping was 
suspended in the first twenty acres, but the most 
of the other grounds were cropped for three years, 
in various crops, but mostly with corn, and after 
this was discontinued, the ground received one plow- 
ing and harrowing each year thereafter. The 
ground was generally plowed in the fall, harrowing 
mostly in the spring, and there was but little fall- 
ing off in the crops of corn, in the second year, 
but in the third there was quite a reduction, as by 
that time the roots of the trees had quite covered 
the ground, interfering with the crop of corn. All 
of these trees made a rapid growth, and the first 
thousand bore a heavy crop the fourth year from 
planting, the fruit as fine as I ever raised before or 
since. I continued adding yearly to the orchards 
up to some 8,000 trees; this included an orchard 
in Delaware county. Pa., occupying a high piece of 
land of loamy soil, of strong Gneiss formation and 
and in fine condition. A strong grass sod was 
turned down, and the trees cropped in corn, for 
three successive years, and treated as the Chester 
county orchards, except in the question of liming, 
which was postponed for the want of time at plant- 



28 THE PEACH 

ing, and was not put on till the following spring. 
All these orchards came into bearing condition the 
fourth season, bearing fine crops, except those com- 
ing in on unfavorable seasons, from late frosts. 
Sometimes the third season, if favorable, the young 
trees would make a light show of fine fruit. These 
orchards continued to produce well from twelve to 
fifteen years, glutting the West Chester market 
with the finest quality of fruit, and driving out all 
foreign supply for years ; returning to my aston- 
ished friends, for their advice so kindly given, and 
as kindly rejected, the most substantial evidence 
of my entire success, establishing the fact, beyond 
a doubt, that peaches can be raised in Chester and 
Delaware counties at least, and on a large scale, 
and at an immense profit to the producer. These 
orchards more than paid the original cost of the 
land, on each bearing year, on a full or even half 
a crop. One season, of a very heavy crop, I rented 
out twenty acres I had some two miles from my 
general orchards, for $850. I had, at that time, 
some seventy acres in bearing, and the balance 
marketed, more than paid the original cost of the 
land upon which they stood. 




IX turning to what, under more favorable cir- 
cumstances than the preceding, just detailed, would 
be called " the dark side of the picture," I pro- 
ceed to a recital of the difficulties encountered irk 
the course of our management of the orchards re- 
ferred to. I am most happy to say that the great- 
est, and the only one that caused the most anxiety^ 
and for which I received the most condolence, arose 
from the trouble of disposing of my large crops of 
peaches, without glutting the surrounding markets,, 
to the reduction of generous prices. Domestic mar- 
kets pay better than those more distant, and par- 
ticularly in cities, where competition is found in 
inferior fruit ; but I console myself that in all these 
gluts, and excesses beyond demand, I had my re- 
ward in the removal of the old notion that Eastern 
Pennsylvania was not adapted to peach growing. 
From some cause or other that old scourge, the 
" yellows," was not so formidable an enemy as I 
had expected to have met, considering the remon- 
strances and persistent advice which my friends 
and neighbors had volunteered, and although this 
advice, so often rejected, may have had its impres- 



30 THE PEACH 

sion, in the truthfulness of the adage, "that to be 
forewarned is to be forearmed," and that in these 
repeated forewarnings I had forearmed myself with 
the requisite instruments to successfully repel the 
assaults of the enemy, and to this we are, in an in- 
direct way, .indebted for the lights and shadows on 
the reversed side of this picture. The trees planted 
in the orchard were principally obtained from two or 
three New Jersey nurseries; one lot of which came 
from the interior of the State, and of a variety now 
common to our orchards, and of first quality in 
size and beauty — the Crawfords Late — and was 
grown in a well conducted nursery, but in a badly 
diseased district. I was informed by the nursery- 
man himself that the infection of the disease was 
so great, through the neighborhood, that he could 
scarcely raise sufficient for home use. At the same 
time, and for years before, he had been raising and 
inoculating nursery trees, and disposing of them 
largely to the peach growers in Delaware, Mary- 
land, and elsewhere every year. This small lot of 
trees — not over 500, perhaps — gave me for several 
seasons more close inspection in detecting and weed- 
ing out diseased trees than all the rest of the or- 
chards I possessed. I entertain no doubt, whatever, 
that the large percentage — which was not less than 
one-third to one-half of the trees — became diseased 
in the nursery, from a general infection, or in bud- 
ding, trimming, or from some other local cause. I 
watched them closely, and on the first symptoms of 



AND ITS DISEASE. 31 

the disease, as it appeared, the tree was removed, 
" root and branch," at once, to prevent any spread 
from contagion. I may remark, just here, and 
and most emphatically, that "a^ once^^ is the time 
to be observed in the removal of the diseased tree 
— suffering no delay to ripen up the approaching 
promising crop — and on the appearance of but a 
single specimen of immature fruit eradicate the 
whole tree ; manifesting no sympathy, nor itching 
palm, to be relieved by a gold dollar or two in pros- 
pect of the crop ; and no penny-wise and pound- 
foolish system of economy to be indulged in ; but 
strike at once at the root of the evil, and save your- 
self, from, perhaps, a tenfold sacrifice. 

Keturning to the subject of the diseased lot of trees, 
spoken of above, in the course of a couple of years 
the disease ceased, and the balance remained 
healthy, requiring no further attention than the 
ordinary culture, and so continued, producing 
heavy crops, in years of bearing, with the rest of 
the orchard. The strongest evidence that this lot 
of trees became diseased in the nursery was the 
fact, that the rest of this orchard, and the others, 
planted mostly with trees from entirely a different 
section, exhibited no such appearance of disease, 
but only occasionally, here and there, one or two 
over a field of some twenty or twenty-five acres, 
continuing thus for perhaps some two or three 
years, but altogether outside of the lot of diseased 
trees above referred to. I do not think that 1 lost 



32 THE PEACH 

at any time in a series of years, over three per cent.; 
by diseased trees, and this, we can readily count 
upon, as diseased trees from the nursery, not onlyj 
from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but from all 
nurseries in badly diseased districts. Assuming 
that fungi is the cause of "yellows," of which I 
think there is no doubt, and what we call diseased' 
infections, spread by contact, budding, trimming, 
or in any other way, and as it affects the roots, 
body and limbs, any remedial agent, or any cura^ 
tive agent cannot at once, or in a year, surrounded 
as we may be by careless cultivators at times,] 
whose only use is to cultivate parasitic fungi, and 
not peaches, prove effectual. In addition to this, 
we have to contend with that which I have just re-! 
ferred to, say one or two per cent., and for a time^ 
perhaps more, of diseased trees from the nursery J 
and this we have to fight. In this aspect of the 
case, in addition to lime, potash, guano, poudrett^ 
or other caustic alkalies, it will require the vigil^ 
ant eye of the peach grower to detect the " except- 
ional," that may so provokingly find their way 
into the orchard, and to nip them in the bud. Tha 
parasitic fungi that works the injury is microscopic,! 
and not visible to the ordinary sight, and its seed 
or spore is its infection, and its touch is its conta-i 
gion. A knife inserted through the bark of a dis-i 
eased tree to the ever-moving current of sap may 
carry with it, in its incision into a healthy tree, a 
thousand spores, marking, in this way, their new 



AND ITS DISEASE. 33 

victim to an early grave. This active sporadic 
agent appears on the body, branches and roots of 
the tree, and the application of alkalies, in a dilu- 
ted state, may be made use of as a wash against 
their further spread. Caustic alkalies will destroy 
fungi — of this there can be no question. The peach 
grower, commencing right at the beginning of his 
work, can have no trouble, if he looks through his 
orchard several times through the season, and at- 
tends to these " exceptional " intruders, which have 
come uninvited from the nursery, or on a sporadic 
visit from a neighbor, and have all such as they 
appear rooted out, replanting other young trees in 
their place, and renovating the earth well with any 
caustic alkali, as ashes, guano, poudrett, &c. 

It must be remembered that these experiments 
have not been confined to a dozen trees in an old 
garden, but extended to thousands, in open field 
culture, and not with one orchard, but with half a 
dozen, and not only in one location, but in several; 
one distant ten miles from the other, and in an ad- 
joining county, and in a different formation of soil, 
and not planted at one time, but at different times. 
These orchards, during their bearing, for twelve 
to fifteen years, were noticed for their thrifty growth, 
health and productiveness, and as an evidence of 
it, an extensive nurseryman in Delaware, who raised 
large quantities of inoculated trees for sale every 
season, obtained his buds from these orchards, to 
keep his fruit trees for the market correct as to va- 



3 A THE PEACH 

Tiety, and as a protection from the yellows, in tak- 
ing buds from known healthy trees. The usual 
course among nurserymen is to cut their buds for 
inoculation from the nursery rows of the previous 
year's growth. As an introduction to another field 
of operation in peach culture, in a different soil and 
in a different climate, embracing a portion of the 
healthy peach districts of the State of Maryland, I 
may say that the Delaware railroad, connecting 
north with the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Bal- 
timore railroad, a mile or two south of Wilming- 
ton, Delaware, with lateral branches, known to bo 
the great avenues of trade and travel through al- 
most the entire length and breadth of the penin- 
sula, embraces the great peach regions of Dela- 
ware and Maryland. This road terminated, until 
after the close of the war, at Salisbury, Delaware^ 
and at that time the peach and fruit district did not 
extend in that direction many miles below this 
point, for the want of facilities of transportation to 
the northern markets. 

In 186-1-5 the attention of our northern people 
began to be drawn in that direction, and particu- 
larly in and around the peach growing centres^ 
some dropping below the terminus, in the direction 
of the proposed extended route of the railroad, 
where a pleasant, equable and healthy climate pre- 
vailed, having on the one side the Atlantic ocean, 
and on the other the Chesapeake Bay, equal of it- 
self to an inland sea. The country is in every way 



AND ITS DISEASE. 35 

adapted to early trucking and fruit growing, for 
the northern cities of New York and Philadelphia. 
Here fruits and vegetables mature some three weeks 
in advance of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, af- 
fording the producer the advantage of an early 
market and highly remunerative prices. I visited 
that section of country in July, 1865, and found 
the early peaches just ripening, and coming into 
market. This was about the twentieth of the 
month. These early shipments were then bringing 
high prices in Philadelphia and New York, and I 
was so pleased with the appearances that I con- 
tracted for the purchase of a farm, near the rail- 
road, with a view of going into general fruit rais- 
ing. This was in Somerset county, Maryland^ 
some fifteen miles below the terminus, at Salis- 
bury. A short time after the road was extended 
to Crisfield, on the bay. In the fall of 1865 and 
the spring of 1866 I commenced planting, putting 
in some 9,000 peach trees, and about twenty acres 
in pears, strawberries and grape vines. This sec- 
tion of Maryland was and is entirely exempt from 
the yellows. The disease, in fact, is not there 
known to peach growers. The extension of the 
railroad through to the bay induced the extensive 
planting of orchards, and the success attending my 
experiment with strawberries at once established 
that branch of fruit culture as highly profitable, 
and from less than one hundred quarts daily ship- 
ped from the station at the time I purchased, the 



36 THE PEACH 

shipments increased in two years to some 25,000 
or 30,000 quarts per day, from the same station. 

The peach tree there located, having no enemy 
to contend with but the borer, the caustic lime 
was not applied at planting, or at any other time. 
The trees were put in ordinary ground, without 
any fertilizer, and with good culture produced fine 
crops of peaches, commencing to bear the third 
year after planting. The early fruit brought fine 
prices in the northern cities, but the later peaches 
coming into competition with an overstocked mar- 
ket, from upper Delaware and Maryland, reduced 
the prices to such a low figure that often the ex- 
penses for baskets, collecting the fruit, freights, 
cartage and commissions consumed the whole price 
obtained, and, in fact, some consignments placed 
the consignee on the debtor side of the account, and 
the early profits were partly absorbed in the later 
shipments. To all this there is another serious 
drawback to peach growing in the South ; for, as 
we proceed from Pennsylvania southward, even to 
Florida, the more precarious is the peach crop, 
from early blooming, succeeded by heavy frosts, 
and such is my experience in raising peaches North 
and South, that I am fully warranted in saying 
that the difference in this respect betrtreen West 
Chester, Pa., and Somerset county, Md., a distance 
of about one hundred and fifty miles, in a due line 
from North to South — taking a consecutive num- 
ber of years, has been fully fifty per cent, of an 



AND ITS DISEASE. 37 

increase in quantity in favor of West Chester, and 
in profits there is no approximate comparison. In 
Chester county the peach crops were more valua- 
ble than any other farm crops I ever raised, except 
my early strawberry crops in Maryland, while the 
peach crops in Maryland were quite unsatisfactory 
and discouraging from the causes assigned. The 
peach is a perishable fruit, and to enjoy it to the 
full, its rich, luscious saccharine taste, which it can 
only acquire at maturity on the tree, it must 
have a home market, a quick and careful convey- 
ance, and then all these advantages can be enjoyed 
by the consumers in our cities and towns by its cul- 
ture in the adjoining counties of Eastern Pennsyl- 
vania supplying the demand, instead of relying 
upon fruit wanting in all these good qualities. The 
time is at hand when all the peaches for our north- 
ern markets will be grown in the North, and every 
great centre of population will be supplied with its 
favorite fruit from its immediate surrounding coun- 
try. This is briefly my experience in peach grow- 
ing in the North and in the South, on a scale about 
equal in number of trees cultivated,and which I con- 
sider a full, fair and satisfactory test, as shown in the 
comparative statements made ; but as the ground for 
the first year, in this southern trial at peach growing 
— or at least twenty acres of it, was planted in straw- 
berries, and was with another orchard of some ten 
acres occupied in the same way and continued for 



38 THE PEACH 

several years, amply made up for losses that were 
sustained in the cultivation of peaches in Maryland. 



LOCATION AND SOIL. 

In treating upon the subject of a location for a 
peach orchard, as the recommendations are for 
practical and intelligent farmers, it may be as- 
sumed that no one of ordinary intelligence would 
be likely to select low springy or marshy grounds, 
as a suitable location for his orchard of peach trees, 
or for fruit of any kind without thorough ditching 
and draining. With this hint, the selection ought 
to be left entirely as an open question, to be de- 
cided by the taste and convenience of the planter, 
as there is little left to choice Avithin the limits of 
a farm, either of exposure, quality or character of 
soil as to give any anxiety in a selection. If the 
proposed orchard should cover the entire farm the 
question is at once settled. If a field of a few 
acres only, select high ground and easy of access, 
and as near to the buildings as may be convenient. 
As to exposure, North, South, East or West, taking 
a consecutive number of years, there would be but 
little difference, if any, as to the protection of the 
fruit from spring frosts. But I may say, in plant- 
ing on a small scale, and where a choice of ex- 
posures offered, I would unhesitatingly, all other 
things being equal, select a high, dry northern ex- 
posure: for occasionally a season of early bloom- 



AND ITS DISEASE. 39 

ing occurs, and as tho peach is more sensitive to a 
few days of warm sun on a southern exposure than 
almost any other fruit, a northern exposure may 
save the crop, -while on the south it may be par- 
tially or entirely destroyed ; a total destruction, 
however, is but seldom. I hare remarked it but 
once in forty years, but this difference may occur 
more frequently on hilly or mountainous regions, 
where the declivities are great and the exposures 
have a great difference of temperature. My or- 
chards were on what may be called rolling land, 
not very hilly, one field about equally divided by 
a narrow valley, giving the orchard on one side 
quite a northern exposure, and on the other about 
the same exposure south. Occasionally I have no- 
ticed the crop on the northern exposure the heav- 
iest; but one season, and one only, the crop on the 
northern exposure was good, while the south was 
almost an entire failure. My orchards presented 
almost every exposure, but I have not noted much 
difference in the effect of frost, except the one I 
have referred to. In Maryland the land is gener- 
ally flat, and the question as to exposure does not 
arise, but even there, there is a choice in location 
governed mainly by the influence of large bodies 
of water modifying the temperature and affording 
in their vicinity protection from late frosts. Such 
locations are greatly preferred by the peach grower 
for although he is south, still he is subject to losses 
in his fruit crop more so than in Pennsylvania, and 



40 THE PEACH 

the further South we proceed the more precarious 
^nd uncertain is the peach crop from the same 
cause. The peaches raised in Michigan and Wis- 
consin, for the Chicago market, are principally from 
orchards cultivated in the vicinity of the lakes, 
these affording protection to the crop from the se- 
vere frosts of spring, and the trees from the sever- 
ity of winter. 



PLANTING. 

In preparing the ground for planting, the soil 
should be deeply broken up, fully to the depth re- 
quired for setting the trees, when practicable ; rocks 
and stones may be obstacles ; follow the plow by a 
thorough harrowing of the ground ; in stiff or clay 
pjround sub-soiling would be of vast advantage. 
In laying off the rows for planting, which must be 
done by a heavy plow and a good strong pair of 
horses, turning the ground up fully to the depth or 
deeper than the first plowing, so that in cross-check- 
ing, the intersection of the furrows, as laid out, 
will form the holes for planting, only wanting a 
little filling or leveling with the shovel to prepare 
them for the tree. With ground prepared in this 
way, and with four men, and a boy to drop the 
trees, I have set out 1,000 trees in nine hours. From 
the time of taking up the trees at the nursery to 
the time of planting them in the ground prepared 



AND ITS DISEASE. 41 

for the orchard, there are three very important 
matters to be observed, and in which there is as 
much close attention required as at any time in the 
growth and culture of the tree: First, the protec- 
tion of the roots from the time of lifting the tree 
in the nursery; second, the trimming before plant- 
ing ; third, planting properly. By the observance 
of the following directions at least a year's growth 
may be saved to the expectant fruit grower — a 
highly important item in the anticipation of an 
early return for the labor and capital invested in 
the new enterprise : 

First, the roots of the trees from the time they 
are lifted at the nursery until planted in the ground, 
should not be permitted to dry ; if transported to- 
a distance, they should be first packed in damp 
moss, or other material, to keep them damp, and at 
once shipped with despatch, and on reaching their 
destination be examined, and if the roots appear 
dry, they should not be planted until they hav9 
been restored by immersion in water from twelve 
to fourteen hours before planting. If found ir> 
good condition in the box, plant them as they are 
unpacked, and before the roots become dry by ex- 
posure. The soaking of the roots in water will 
restore the small fibres, and the trees, if the 
weather and soil are favorable, will commence 
growth at once. It is, I believe, a pretty fair cal- 
culation to make, to estimate about one-fourth 
of the stock taken from the nursery as failing for 



42 THE PEACH 

the want of the observance of more care and at- 
tention in the protection of the roots from the tak- 
ing up to the resetting, and to increase the propor- 
tion of losses, there may be much attributed to 
carelessness in planting. The roots are mostly 
crowded down into a small, deep hole, twice the 
depth it should be, and into a cold, poor sab-soil, 
filling up and settling the earth down by a few 
shakes of the tree, and thus leaving it to the 
chances of a dry spring, or a cold wet one, with a 
dry summer to follow, which is no better for such 
planting, and there it soon withers and dies. 

Instead of such treatment, it should be put in 
the well pulverized ground at a moderate depth, 
not deeper than it stood in the nursery, and even 
not so deep, if the sub-soil in which it is planted is 
stiff clay ; and in all cases, if the tree has been ex- 
posed and become dry, soak the roots in water be- 
fore planting, as above described. 

For small peach trees, one year old, and for ap- 
ples, two and three years old, in planting them, 
every shovelful of earth should be pressed by the 
foot firmly to the roots, with no shaking up and 
down, and misplacing and doubling the small roots 
and fibres, under the old absurd idea, that practi- 
cal experience never originated or sanctioned. The 
tree must be established in the first place, firmly 
in the ground, with the earth impacted about its 
roots, leaving no room for mould, or other fungi. 



AND ITS DISEASE. 43 

to conceal themselves for future depredations, and 
no staking required to keep the tree upright. 

In the case of the peach, before planting, the top 
should be divested of every limb, with a sharp 
pruning knife, and a portion of the top or main 
stem, for some four to six inches, leaving the tree 
in appearance a mere stick above the surface. The 
latent buds, at the base of the limbs cut off, will 
break at the opening of the season, and soon show 
a new and vigorous growth, which, by the fall of 
the year, will be double the size of the old ones, 
had they been lefc, as is generally practiced by 
amateurs. As a rule, it is advisable, in setting 
out an orchard or in- planting a favorite tree, the 
owner should superintend the planting or plant him- 
self, unless he has some one to do it on whom he 
can fully rely, knowing more or as much as he 
knows himself. 

To give an example of faithless employees and 
bad planting, some years ago I had been employed 
in setting out some ten to fifteen acres of peach 
trees, and on the last day of planting, towards 
evening, I left my men to finish out with some fifty 
or sixty trees still to be planted. This was on a 
Saturday afternoon. The trees were put in, and 
to all appearances, as I observed in a day or two 
thereafter, they had been planted about as the 
others had been, but in a short time they gave un- 
doubted evidence that something was wrong with 
tbem. There was but here and there one that 



44 THE PEACH 

Started in growth. In testing them, as I should 
have done when I first saw them, and taking 
hold of one I lifted it out of the ground almost 
Avithout an eftbrt, and the consequence was that 
two-thirds of those trees died. This is what the 
men used to call " covering their tracks," but this 
case was the last of their "track covering" for me. 
In looking into the old authorities, in their re- 
commendations of soils for peach growing, we can- 
not go amiss in recommending everything, for tak- 
ing them altogether, we find them running pretty 
much in the same groove, winding up with the old 
discriminating degrees of comparison of " good, 
better, best," the same as our agricultural fairs 
rank their fruits on exhibition, from the luscious 
peach to the useful pumpkin, and I think from my 
experience, I may say that they are all about right, 
for I have never met with a formation yet upon 
which I could not succeed in raising peaches; even 
low, wet, swampy lands can be made to grow them 
with the proper ditching and draining; but the 
peach, of all the fruits we grow, adapts itself to 
more formations and climates than any other spe- 
cies of fruit, from the tropics to the State of Mas- 
sachusetts, and through all this territory, where- 
ever cultivated, it excels all other fruits grown, for 
its great beauty, lusciousness and adaptability to 
the taste, not only of man, but even of the lower 
animals, birds and insects. From my experience, 
I can say that it is well adapted to a Gneiss forma- 



AND ITS DISEASE. 45 

tion, which affords a deep, rich loam, with a small 
portion of sand, to mica slate, which is composed 
of quartz and mica, and deposits of talc, to lime- 
stone, which is the carbonate of lime, to sandstone 
and red shale, of slaty structure, composing the 
red formation passing through the counties of 
Bucks, Montgomery and Chester, in the State of 
Pennsylvania, to light sandy soils; also to sandy 
soils with a red clay subsoil. The most of these, 
in the course of farm culture, contain more or less 
rich vegetable mould, and these formations em- 
brace about all the soils of a general geological 
character constituting our farm lands. These are 
all adapted to peach culture, but for preference I 
will name them in the following order : Mica slate^ 
gneiss, red shale, limestone, sandy loam, light 
sand, sand with red clay subsoil. This last I have 
tested in Maryland, and there it rates first in qual- 
ity for peaches or any other fruit. Stiff clay is 
considered the least desirable, but if well prepared 
I have found it to produce excellent crops of fruits 
The peacb does not require the richest soiL Del- 
aware and Maryland ship thousands of baskets 
yearly of finely grown peaches from lands below 
medium quality in fertility. In such soils, and in- 
deed in all soils, the peach requires yearly culture,, 
and with that requisite all soils will produce good 
peaches in our temperate climate. The peach must 
make its bearing wood every year, and it requires 
cultivation to give it strong, vigorous growths 



46 THE PEACH 

With fair ground, as to quality, it comes into bear- 
ing lightly the third year, if favorable, and in the 
fourth year I have uniformly, if aot cut off by late 
frosts, had full crops. 

My first planting of 1,000 trees produced a full 
crop the fourth year, and attracted a great deal of 
interest from a doubting community for miles 
around, disarming all the threadbare arguments 
that peaches could not be raised in Chester county. 
There was scarcely a year in which the crop en- 
tirely failed, and a partial crop often brings more 
than a full one. In such years peaches are scarce, 
and the market prices are correspondingly higher. 
I have had peaches to retail in the Philadelphia 
market as high as seventy-five cents per dozen, di- 
rect from my orchards, and they have often since 
brought higher prices from Chester county or- 
chards. Those who have read Edwin Morris' ad- 
mirable little book, entitled " Ten Acres Enough," 
will recollect that he tells us of his ten old peach 
trees in his garden, which, after supplying the fam- 
ily with fruit for the season, realized sixty to sev- 
enty dollars for the surplus fruit sent to market. 



CULTIVATION. 

The peach of all the fruits has for the last fifty 
years made better return for good and careful cul- 
tivation and labor expended, than all the other 
fruits for market purposes within reach of our 
northern cities. It will pay better than any crop on 
the farm and from my experience nothing I believe 
will pay the farmer better for the money and labor 
expanded than its cultivation. The idea is preva- 
lent at the North that in the healthy districts in 
Maryland and the South the tree springs up and 
without culture or care grows up and flourishes in 
health and productiveness for almost an indefinite 
period, but this is a mistake, as the apple and other 
fruits which we see there running into old age have 
had their culture in the rotation of field crops and 
if standing in gardens they have had their annual 
culture incidentally with the cultivation of the 
flowering plants and vegetables. Under these cir- 
cumstances we see these old relics of a past century 
from three up to seven feet in circumference of 
body, and two to two and a half feet around in 
limbs, still responding faithfully in good crops of 
fruit almost yearly for the little care bestowed upon 
them. Many of them through a long life of sacred 



48 THE PEACH 

associations are still the object of family endear- 
ment. Why should not care and culture prolong 
the life of the tree as it does that of our permanent 
plants and the common products of the earth? 
Fruitfulness and longevity require culture and with- 
out it both vegetable and animal life would result 
in failure. And here we read the history of bur 
failure through our own prejudices and lack of en- 
ergy years ago to grow this delicious fruit in Penn- 
sylvania 4«-i4Qg its almost entire culture beyond 
the limits of our State and to be taken up by the 
early pioneers of the enterprise — the citizens of Del- 
aware and Maryland, as a branch of common indus- 
try and one which has added its millions of dollars 
to their agricultural interests in raising them to 
competence and affluence in a fifty years undis- 
turbed monopoly of our markets. I do not speak 
of this in any feeling of complaint, for they de- 
serve it all for their energy and their labor. Their 
foresight stands as a monument to their perse- 
verance and industry. As we are now, with our 
discoveries, placed on an equal footing, so far as to 
say that we, too, can raise peaches at home, and 
compete with them in our own markets, we may now 
congratulate ourselves in the hope that the time is 
coming when we may, in some measure, return the 
many obligations to our friends in Delaware at 
least by catering to their tastes in the markets of 
Wilmington, the growing metropolis of their State. 
The planting of peach trees will not interfere, to 



AND ITS disease". 49 

any appreciable amount, with the crop of corn, by 
turning down, as usual, a stiff sod, and in planting 
the peach trees at 16x18 feet in the rows we will 
have one hundred and fifty to the acre. Using that 
many hills, of corn, the corn being planted 3x4 at, 
say eighty bushels to the acre, the one hundred and 
fifty hills occupied by the trees would reduce the 
product of the acre only about three and one-half 
bushels. The second year we put in corn, potatoes 
and other crops, requiring culture, also manuring 
in the hill to make the corn crop, and this second 
year's crop may not exceed over two-thirds that 
of the first year; the third year to be again plant- 
ed with corn, or such crops as require cultivation, 
and after the third year all cropping to be sus- 
pended, but the field or orchard thereafter to be 
cultivated by plowing and harrowing it at least 
once a year, and oftener in years of overbearing, 
as hereinafter pointed out. 



MANURES, 

As the analysis of the peach, apple and pear 
shows them so nearly allied in proportional quan- 
tities of the most important elements of which they 
are composed, on the settled principle that these 
constituent parts indicate the food upon which they 
exist, it is evident that in catering to their appe- 
tites, we may feed them all from a compost formed 
of the same fertilizing elements of which they are 
mainly composed. Every suitable soil of medium 
fertility contains a sufficient quantity of the requi- 
site elements for a healthy and vigorous growth of 
the peach ; therefore, but little, if any, of the fer- 
tilizing elements will be required at planting, or 
in its growth up to bearing, unless as a precaution 
against infection from that fell specific disease, the 
"yellows," to which it is subject in Pennsylvania, 
and in the most of our neighboring States. The fol- 
lowing is a chemical aualysis of the peach, apple 
and pear, the leading fruits adapted to our soil and 
climate: 

Peach — Potash, 12; lime, 23; phosphate of lime, 
21. 



AND ITS DISEASE. 51 

Apple— Potash, 16; lime, 19; phosphate of lime,. 
17. 

Pear — Potash, 22 ; lime, 13 ; phosphate of lime,. 
27. 

It will be observed that there is but little differ- 
ence in the chemical composition of these import- 
ant elements, except that of lime, which, in the 
peach, is largely developed. All these ingredients 
are familiar to every tiller of the soil as manures, 
and are applied almost yearly to crops. With this 
analysis before us, we have no need of inquiry of 
our neighbor as to the kind of manure best adapted 
to the orchard. We see that these three fruits are 
composed largely of potash, lime and phosphate af 
lime, and when the soil becomes exhausted of either, 
or all, and the ground begins to present the appear- 
ance of poverty, as indicated in the crop, these ele- 
ments must be resupplied to restore the trees, or 
rather to continue their growth and vigor. 

In medium soils an application o^ caustic or quiet 
limCj direct from the kiln, at the rate of fifty bushels 
to the acre, spread on the plowed ground, and well 
harrowed in, as for corn, is about all the man>uring 
or treatment that the ground requires for the peach- 
tree at planting, and for the first season of its- 
growth, with the usual attention in cultivating the- 
corn, potatoes or other cultivated crops which may 
occupy the ground. As caustic lime — always cheap* 
and accessible — is to act a leading part in the new 
programme, as a remedial age^t for the protection. 



52 THE PEACH 

of the health of the peach tree from its specific dis- ' 
oase, in connection with other alkalies, it may be ! 
as well for us to look now somewhat into its chem- ' 
ical and mechanical action in the multiple econo* 
my of vegetable life. Lime may be employed to 
prevent the decay of wood and other organic sub- 
stances, or it may be employed for their decompo- ; 
sition. We have the example of the first in ships j 
and wooden structures used in transportation of 
burned lime, and in carts and wagons conveying it 
from the kiln to the fields. In these cases the lime ! 
is in excess of the organic matter, and therefore j 
the moisture in the wood is absorbed by the lime, I 
while the fibre is preserved in this way from de- 
•composition ; but if these conditions are reversed, | 
and the water and organic matter are in excess of 
the newly burned lime, the wood will decay. Lime | 
is employed on our soils to reduce or decompose ' 
vegetable elements, to correct its acidity, or for the j 
solution of silica, or the decomposition of iron salts I 
in the soil. 

Lime has a powerful attraction for carbonic acid, 
and as vegetable matter is composed largely of car- 
bon, it is readily seen why decomposition takes 
place. Quick or caustic lime, in fact, soon becomes i 
the carbonate of lime by exposure to the action of i 
vegetable matter, and thus loses its caustic proper- 
ties. As an alkali, lime neutralizes acidity in the i 
soil, and sweetens it for the growth of our crops. | 
A good soil must not possess any acid properties. 



AND ITS DISEASE. 53 

The remains of plants, and even stable manure are 
of an acid nature, bat the soil usually contains, in 
its mineral constituents, so many bases — lime, pot- 
ash, soda and magnesia — that these suffice to neu- 
tralize the acidity. But when this natural supply 
is insufficient we must add to it, and lime is the 
cheapest base at the hands of the farmer. Lime 
has the property of setting at liberty the alkalies 
in the soil, thus favoring the formation of the solu- 
ble silicates, so important to the growth of grass 
and grain. The application of lime to land and 
the burning of clay act on the same principle in 
decomposing the clay silicates and liberating their 
alkalies, thus favoring solubility and affording nu- 
triment to vegetable life. Lime in its caustic state 
is destructive to moss^ lichen^ fungi and all vegeta- 
ble and animal matter. 

In the month of October the fields of Yorkshire, 
and Oxfordshire, England, look as if they were 
covered with snow. They are plowed down, and 
whole square miles are seen whitened over with 
quick lime, which during the moist winter months 
exercises its beneficial influence upon the stiff clay 
soil of those countries. 

Fruitfulness in cold clay soils may be promoted 
and made equal to the best for apples, peaches and 
other fruits with a moderate dressing of quick lime, 
about the quantity such lands should receive for 
corn. Lime will generally promote profuse flow, 
ering and fruiting of trees and plants, the lime 



54 THE PEACH 

salts producing evaporation and concentration of 
the sap. On the black vegetable lands of southern 
Maryland, with caustic oyster shell lime, of forty 
bushels to the acre, fifty bushels of corn can be 
produced to the acre without using a shovel full of 
other manure. The quick lime neutralizes the 
acid in the sour vegetable soil sweetening it and 
changing it into rich soluble food for the crop. 
The cultivated plants which consume very much 
lime in their development will naturally lead much 
sooner to an exhaustion of the lime in the soil, than 
those plants which use lime only moderately. 

These brief references to the chemical and me- 
chanical operations of lime on the vegetable and 
mineral substances in the soil, will give us some 
idea of its importance in preparing the soil with^ 
indispensible food to the healthy growth of plants 
and trees. 

The questions as to the time, condition and quan- 
tity in which this great corrective alkaline agent 
should be applied to the soil to obtain the most 
desirable results are of vast importance to the in- 
terests of the country. Many an agricultural crop 
has been lost and many an orchard has withered 
and died for the want of a better knowledge of that 
class of alkaline manures which make up so large- 
ly the elements of vegetable growth. It will be 
observed that the analysis has given us but three 
of the ingredients, among the many, which go to 
make up the entire composition of the peach and 



AND ITS DISEASE. 55' 

the oiher fruits named, viz : potash, lime and phos- 
phate of lime, these being the important ones, and 
the only ones indeed required to enable us to point 
out the requisite manures ; the others being sup- 
plied in small quantities already in the soil or ob- 
tained from the atmosphere. 

In the analysis of the peach, apple and pear 
referred to, potash ranks as the second ingredient 
of importance, entering largely as a component 
part of these three loading fruits. We will here 
briefly present it as another of the alkaline agents 
with quick lime active in the destruction of the 
relentless enemy to the peach tree. In speaking 
of potash we associate it at once with ashes as they 
are well known to contain largely of this element, 
and they are all at the command of the farmer 
that furnish it. 

Practice has shown that Potash exerts a highly 
favorable influence on the growth of plants. The: 
Chemist informs us that potash belongs to the caus- 
tic alkaline bodies and in this form resembles am- 
monia, and this similarity is carried out in its 
strong action in forcing vegetable growth. The- 
virgin soil furnishes us with potash and it will 
continue to do so, for all kinds of earth and stone- 
contain stores of it in an insoluble state, and a cer- 
tain portion is made soluble from year to year by 
the weather and our plants have the benefit of this. 
Spreading the fields over with quick lime causes an 
increased quantity of potash, since lime possesses 



56 THE PEACH 

the power of decomposing rocks and stones con- 
taining it (Stockhart Ag. Ghem.) But if the soil is 
employed from year to year in the growth of ex- 
haustive crops, the salts of potash must to some 
•extent be given back in some form to prevent the 
land from becoming sterile for the want of this im- 
portant element of which it has been robbed. An 
example we have in the exhausted soils of Virginia 
hy the successive crops of tobacco grown by the 
early settlers of the country who looked upon the 
virgin soil of their farms as inexhaustible-^and as 
also the farmers in the rich Genesee Yalley of New 
York, within my recollection, entertained the same 
views. In advertising their farm^ for sstle, one of 
the advantages claimed was that the barn and sta- 
bles were located on a stream of water sufficient to 
carry off the manure without the trouble and ex- 
pense of carting. Although this may be so with 
a continued succession of exhaustive crops, (all 
•crops are exhaustive if all is taken off and nothing 
returned,) for the potash and other manurial in- 
gredients will go faster than the weather can an- 
nually supply them. But this is not the case with 
our orchards, for it is well known that a peach 
orchard improves the soil and it is the same with 
the apple and pear orchards as may be seen in the 
soil for years after they have died out or been re- 
moved. I believe that an analysis of the soils of 
any of our orchards would show as much if not 
finore lime and potash than they could have done 



AND ITS DISEASE. dT 

at the planting; however old they may be if not 
exhausted by overcropping ; for the continual stir- 
ring of the soil as in the peach orchard and the 
turning in yearly with the plow all vegetable 
growth, that may be made through the growing 
season, and the fallen foliage of the trees in the fall; 
together with the exposure of the soil to the de- 
composing actions of rains and frost and other 
atmospheric influences, make soluble that which 
was before insoluble for the support of plants. 
From rock and stone and pebble and grains of sand, 
down even below a microscopic atom is developed 
this important agent, potash, which plays its in- 
comprehensible role in the support of vegetable 
and animal life. All these elements are at work 
in their proper seasons, furnishing lime, potash 
and other alkalies to the soil, the same as we ob- 
serve in Virginia for the past century, furnishing 
slowly but surely a returning supply of plant food 
to be husbanded, it is to be hoped, more carefully 
for the present and succeeding generations. 

We may assume that the peach, apple and pear 
contained in their first introduction into the coun- 
try the same quantities and relative proportion of 
ingredients in their composition that they now do^ 
and that no complaint was then made in the North 
that the soil had become exhausted of its potash 
and lime ; nor is there any complaint now in the- 
South where the orchards thrive and produce from 
fifty to sixty years. The shortened life and failure: 



^8 THE PEACH 

in the North arose from another cause, which was 
noticed and first recorded by Judge Peters, the 
f^resident of the ^'Philadelphia Agricultural So- 
ciety," who, on the 11th of February, 1806, in a 
communication to the Society, wrote : "About 
fifty years ago, on the farm on which I now re- 
side, my father had a large peach orchard which 
yielded abundantly until a general catastrophe be- 
fel it. Plentiful crops had been for many years 
produced with but little attention, when the trees 
all at once began to decline and finally perished. 
For forty years past I have observed the peach 
trees in my neighborhood to be short lived." This 
sudden transition from a long life to a short one 
was not from the exhaustion of the soil. It was 
from disease, and in the peach tree the great and 
overshadowing disease caused by a "parasitic 
fungi," and perhaps from slighter injuries from in- 
sect life. These pests heing destroyed^ the orchard 
will he restored to its primitive healthy thrifty pro- 
ductiveness and a more prolonged life. 

The remedy is at hand in the very elements 
which afford food for the tree, and of which it is 
mainly composed — lime, potash and other alkalies, 
^nd while giving life and strength to the tree they 
^re striking down and removing the cause of dis- 
-ease, when properly applied. 

In recommending a suitable manure for the peach, 
^nd following out the indications shown by the 
^analysis, and my own experience, I may say that 



AND ITS DISEASE. 59 

^^ caustic or quick lime is now for the first time xmh- 
licly announced as an indispensahle specific remedial 
agent, ivith the other alkalies named, against the yel- 
lows in the peach tree ^ 

lu seasons of overhearing the orchard should be 
cultivated up to about the middle of July with the 
plow or cultivator and harrow, the same as with 
the young trees before their bearing and while cul- 
tivated in corn ; and if apparently needing manure 
a light shovelful of wood ashes applied to the tree 
at its base — first removing the earth from around 
it with a heavy hoe — and this course of treatment 
will keep the trees in a thrifty, growing condition, 
forming wood for the next year's crop, and sustain- 
ing them through their exhaustive efforts under an 
over cropping. But this unnatural draft upon the 
strength of the tree may be avoided, under a judi- 
cious thinning out of the young fruit to a moderate 
crop. This is done to a limited extent occasionally, 
but I have never yet known it to be extended to 
large orchards. There can be no doubt of the ad- 
vantage and profit of such a practice, as a case in 
point from a successful gardener shows : " My ten 
fruit trees were loaded with fruit. When as large 
as hickory nuts, I began the operation of remov- 
ing all the smallest, and of thinning out unsparing- 
ly wherever they were crowded. After going over 
five trees in this way, in deference to gentle remon- 
strances from his ' better half,' he suspended his 
* ravages,' leaving five untouched. 



60 THE PEACH 

In summing up he states that the peaches on the 
live denuded trees grew prodigiously large. These 
were gathered and sent to the Philadelphia market 
and brought forty-one dollars clear of all expenses, 
while the fruit from the other five trees, sent to 
market, netted only twenty-six dollars, making a 
difference of fifteen dollars in favor of thinning/ 
The ten trees produced sixty-seven dollars, but if 
all had been thinned the product would have been 
eighty-two dollars. 

This difference, extended to an orchard of 10,000 
to 20,000 trees, would make a handsome annual 
profit. This is a striking illustration, though it 
might not be carried out on a large scale, at so 
high a rate, still it is a hard fact in favor of ex- 
pending a little labor to a large profit. This is an 
impressive example for our fruit growers and gar- 
deners, but more particularly to those on a limited 
scale, who can in some measure make up in quali- 
ty what they lack in quantity. I expect however 
that the matter is pretty well adjusted as it is giv- 
ing the advantage to the small though careful pro- 
ducer in his quality. Where there is a will there 
is a way and with the enthusiast it is a well beaten 
path to the object of his ambition. 

In applying manures to trees and plants, when 
required, if the conipost heap, or the means to pro- 
cure the requisite elements recommended, fall short 
of a supply for the entire surface of the garden or 
orchard, the object may be attained by adopting the 



AND ITS DISEASE. 6! 

"Chinese method" of manuring the roots rather 
than the soil, by applying the fertilizing liquid or 
solid to the base of the tree by first removing the 
earth from around it, giving it, in the case of the 
peach, a shovelful of wood ashes occasionally, or 
soap-suds, lime, poudrette, or a little composted 
guano, or other alkali, graduating the quantity to- 
the strength of the application and size of the tree. 
This will give better immediate results than ten- 
times the quantity scattered broadcast on the sur- 
face, as around the base of the tree the application 
is at once direct to the proper place, and will soon 
show the efifect on the orchard. My views on this 
point are contained in an article submitted at a 
meeting of the Fruit Grower's Society of Pennsyl- 
vania, held at Reading, January 15, 1873, and pub- 
lished in the proceedings of the society, in volume 
9, of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society, 
inquiring as to the "Best Method of Manuring 
Fruit Trees, Their Appropriate Manures, &c." from 
which the following is extracted : 

"Perhaps it is enough to apply the remedy di- 
rect to the roots of the trees around their trunk, 
instead of treating all the soil of the orchard ; ex 
periments, as shown, seem to have established this 
fact. With my experiments with ashes, charcoal, 
poudrette, also with lime, the application around 
the tree, first removing the earth from the surface, 
I have found quite sufficient ; the potash or other 
alkalies being absorbed and carried into the circu 



62 THE PEACH 

lation, and in the course of a few months a new 
supply of fine surface roots from the tree encircling 
the whole stock, spreading in every direction in the 
alkaline compost, and taking up the nutritious ele- 
ments they contain, increasing the thrift and fruit* 
fulness of the tree. Here we have the evidence 
that this portion of the tree, at least, absorbs nu- 
triment as well as the roots and leaves, and that' 
every portion of the tree performs the same office." 

This practice is directly in the teeth of the the- 
ory of Professor Lindley, (England's great vegeta- 
ble physiologist), in his facetious ridicule in the 
closing page of his work on "Horticulture," in 
which he says : 

" I have seen a gardener, who ought to have 
known much better, seduously administering liquid 
manure, by pouring it into the soil at the base of 
the stem, which is much the same thing as if an 
attempt were made to feed a man through the soles 
of his feet." 

There is not, I would suppose, an intelligent far- 
mer in Chester county but who could convince the 
old philosopher of the error implied in his ridicule 
of the wise gardener, nor is there a doctor within 
the same limits but would confirm it practical- 
ly, by the insertion of a little solution of mor- 
phia in the professor's back for lumbago. I may 
here add that the Chinese system of manuring by 
a direct application, as the manure of the profes- 
sor's gardener, is the most plausible argument that 



AND ITS DISEASE. 63 

«aii be used for the gross system of culture, wbicli 
has its distinguished advocates; but I find none 
among extensive peach growers who break the 
fioil yearly. 

It has always been remarked that quality, and not 
quantity, is what is wanted. My observation has 
been that beauty outranks quantity, in the fruit 
market, at least. To present that requisite in more 
than its natural attraction, I would recommend 
an occasional manuring of th^ ground around the 
tree with ammoniacal manures, such as guano, 
poudrette, and with charcoal, which is a heavy ab- 
sorbent of ammonia. These elements, through 
their ammonia, will impart to the peach an inten- 
sity to that peculiar rich, deep mellow red color, 
known to no other fruit, giving it its great beauty 
over all others; and in addition to this, these am- 
raoniacal elements are,in their effects, highly enrich- 
ing to the soil, as we are all aware, and as strong 
alkalies act as remedial agents against the "yel- 
lows." The expense of fertilizers for the culture 
of the peach is much less than for any other crop 
on the farm. My practice was to a considerable 
extent to plant apple orchards in the grounds oc- 
cupied in peach trees. The trees are cultivated to- 
gether, and the fertilizers of the one are adapted to 
the other, and in some six or eight years the ap- 
ples will begin to bear, and there will be but little 
interference, the apple trees being planted in rows 
22x36, the peach trees 16x18. My large orchards 



6-4: AND ITS DISEASE. 

were mostly planted 18x18 feet. I have tried them 
at from 12x12 up to 18x20, but finally settled down 
to 18x18, which I found to be about the proper 
distance; intersecting the orchard with roads at 
convenient distances for gathering the fruit, small 
orchards not requiring such an arrangement, the 
head lands being wide enough for wagons to pass 
and repass in removing fruit. 



INTRODUCTORY TO THE FOLLOWING 
CHAPTER ON THE INDICATIONS OF 
THE YELLOWS: 

The subject of the "yellows" in the peach tree 
has come under the notice of the Agricultural De- 
partment at Washington, and recognized as a ques- 
tion of great importance to our agricultural inter- 
ests. The microsGopist of the Department, Prof. 
Thomas Taylor, in his investigations into the cause 
of this widt spread and most destructive disease, 
has thrown around the whole subject many new 
and interesting features that seem to have harmo- 
nized our Pomologists, and led to the adoption of 
Prof. Taylor's conclusions, that Fungi is the cause 
of this fatal disease. These microscopic reports 
of the investigations of Prof. Taylor, accompanied 
by illustrations, will be found at length in the 
Agricultural Eeports of the Department for the 
years 1871 and '72. We understand that further 
examinations are being made by the Department, 
which, no doubt, will goto confirm the conclusions 
to which the former investigations led. This, it is 
hoped, will settle the great question which has 
baffled the untiring efforts of the country for al- 
most the last century to discover a cause. 

We have now only to apply a remedy in a 



6Q THE PEACH 

proper way to restore our diseased peach districts 
and sections of the country to a healthy condition 
as peach growing regions, and I think that this 
may be found in my practice of treatment in peach 
growing for the last thirty years, and as recom- 
mended here in these pages with the vigilant pre- 
cautions I have pointed out. 



INDICATION OF YELLOWS, 

In the yellows the bearing tree in its incipient 
stage of disease shows a premature ripening of the 
fruit, sometimes only in a single branch, or even 
a fruit spur, and on other trees the fruit on a large 
limb may present the same early maturity, while 
in both trees the balance of the fruit retains its 
natural green, thrifty condition, and to all appear- 
ances perfectly healthy, but as the disease pro- 
gresses the fruit continues to be affected gradually 
in the same way up to the ripening of the healthy 
crop. I have known many fruit growers to be 
deceived with these appearances, supposing that in 
this early maturity they had a new variety of 
great value, which could be increased by inocula- 
tion ; and for a time the supposed new fruit was 
quietly spoken of in a very confidential way. But 
alas ! the next year's appearance of both fruit and 



AND ITS DISEASE. QT 

tree fully dispelled the delusion, and instead of a 
new early variety, the disappointment ended in a 
crop of small astringent, worthless fruit and a tree- 
in the advanced stage of the disease. The most of 
our authors inform us that the fruit indicating the 
disease is smaller than the healthy fruit. My ex- 
perience uniformally has been that in the first 
stages of the disease, where but a few peaches on a. 
tree ripen prematurely, they are much larger than 
mature fruit of the general crop of the same va- 
riety. I well recollect, and will here cite one or 
two cases of trees slightly affected, which produced 
fruit of immense size : 

At the first exhibition of the Chester County 
Horticultural Society, held at West Chester, Pa., 
early in September, 1848, Mr. B. Graves exhibited 
a few specimens of the Red Cheek Malacaton, which 
for size and beauty could not have been excelled,, 
many of them measuring thirteen inches in cir- 
cumference, but all exhibited here and there on- 
the surface the fatal symptoms of disease, mani- 
fested by deep reddish, purple splotches and hectie 
spots, in beautiful contrast with that rich tint pe- 
culiar only to this delicate fruit. This, of course,, 
was the first and the last contribution from that 
noble tree, and it fell prematurely under this fatal' 
disease that has seldom spared its victim. 

There was exhibited at the same time a beauti- 
ful collection of the same variety from an orchard 
near Chester Springs, Avhich also showed slight in- 



68 THE PEACH 

dications of the same disease. These took a pre- 
mium, and were sent directly to the Horticultural 
Fair then open in Philadelphia, and there also re- 
ceived the premium for their great size and beauty, 
and as I was informed, were considered a valuable 
seedling and not the Malacaton as labelled. Hun- 
dreds of bushels of these prematurely ripened 
peaches from badly diseased trees are sold in the 
early markets, bringing prices much greater per- 
haps than the healthy crop, on account of their 
<?arly ripening, and hence it is that diseased trees 
are left standing in yards and gardens and even in 
the orchards of some peach districts, diffusing their 
poisonous contagion throughout an entire district, 
blasting their own and their neighbor's healthy 
trees, in order that they may at so great sacrifice 
gather from their dying plants the last deserted 
and tasteless peach. The disease in its earliest 
stages in young trees, which, by the way, some- 
times comes from the nurserj'- in the stock we pur- 
chase, is more difficult to detect than at a later 
period. r ^ : ' 

It requires a practical eye and a knowledge of 
the habits of the tree to detect it, and its peculiar 
features, as there are several active agents at work 
which may cause the yellow appearance, and the 
casual observer might be mistaken ; and through 
this very common mistake we have so many dif- 
ferent and infallible recipes for the cure of the 
yellows. The next indication, and the only one 



AND ITS DISEASE. 69 

by which the majority of peach growers first de- 
tect the disease, is as indicative and as marked in 
its symptoms of approaching death as the "black 
vomit" in the human system. This next indica- 
tion to which we now refer, is seen in the small 
wiry shoots springing from the body and large 
branches, or from the roots at the base of the tree, 
producing in every instance small yellow lanceo- 
late (lance-like) leaves, and the whole tree assum- 
ing a sickly appearance in leaves and branches, 
and producing small highly colored fruit with the 
peculiar spots and blotches as before described, 
only more numerous with flesh deep red and 
stringy, and fruit worthless for any purpose of 
family use or for marketing. I am so entirely 
familiar with the appearance of the diseased peach 
tree in all its stages, that I can readily tell the 
condition of an orchard by examining a few gen- 
eral samples of its fruit at maturity, either prema- 
ture or healthy. In a special disease the discovery 
of the cause may be the means of leading to the 
discovery of a cure, but if the special remedy be 
known, the doctor can get along with the patient 
without troubling himself so much with the cause 
of disease. It is pretty generally believed that the 
cause here arises from a Parasitic Fungi in the 
bark and roots of the tree, but it is not for us just 
here to discuss that question, nor is it at all neces- 
sary, as we know our remedy and the course of 
treatment to be applied, which has proven entirely 



70 THE PEACH 

satisfactory in raising fruit on a large scale for 
twelve or fifteen years consecutively in the same 
orchards in Chester and Delaware counties, sur- 
rounded at the same time by thousands of trees, 
dead and dying from the disease for the want of 
the application of proper measures, and quite as 
much, perhaps, from the want of care and proper 
treatment. My large and successful orchards were 
intersected by public roads much traveled, and were 
the cause of great attraction, exciting an interest 
that led to the planting of thousands of trees, but 
as our apple orchards are now cultivated and cared 
for, these new plantings of the peach were gener- 
ally left to take the rotation of farm crops, of corn, 
oats, wheat and clover, and they soon yielded and 
finally fell victims to the borer and the yellows. 

The disease is communicated by contact of roots, 
inoculation or trimming. A knife used on a dis- 
eased tree will communicate the disease if used on 
a healthy one. If the disease arises from Parasitic 
Fungi, it is most likely communicated by what is 
called sporadic contagion. A great deal of the 
cause of its rapid spread, no doubt, may be attrib- 
uted to the practice so prevalent with peach grow- 
ers in the annual trimming of their orchards. It 
has no doubt been ruinous to those growers who 
have not been able to recognize the disease in its 
early stages. Only the trimming of a few diseased 
trees in an orchard may be the means of spreading 
the disease over the entire orchard in the course of 



AND ITS DISEASE. 71 

two or three years, and tliis would more likely be 
the case if the trimming should be done in the 
spring or summer at the full circulation and flow 
of the sap. Eeally the tree wants but little trim- 
ming after the head is formed. This is to be regu- 
lated according to taste and convenience. My prac- 
tice has been to head my trees leaving the body 
five to six feet in length, so as to cultivate with 
freedom and ease with small horses or mules, well 
up to the tree, thus saving much labor and afford- 
ing a free circulation u( air and a full view through 
an orchard of considerable size. Low heading makes 
close and neat cultivation rather difficult and more 
expensive, and what is worse than all liable to be 
neglected. The peach grower looking to success 
which is found alone in the health of his trees must 
be a bold operator. On the first symptoms of dis- 
ease if only in a twig or a fruit spur, it must be 
eradicated, root body and branch, and as the barren 
fig tree cast into the fire, renewing its place by first 
applying to the soil in which it grew the necessary 
curative manures in sufficient quantity for a healthy 
reception for a new tree at the proper season for 
planting. 

Shall we longer as advised by the old school of 
vegetable Philosophers still wait the old cycle of 
time — 20 years — to renew a removed apple or peach 
tree, or replant a new orchard on the ground fol- 
lowing the removal of the old? I am prepared to 
answer no ; with the light before us we will treat 



72 THE PEACH 

our orchards as we treat our crops ; rotate at a time 
and in a way to suit our own convenience, and not 
to suit the tastes and convenience of fungoid toad- 
stools and infusoria, our enemies in peach growing 
and so insignificant too, that we have to use 500 or 
1000 diameter microscopic power to bring them 
within the range of oiir vision. 

*' Nature abhors a vacuum," so said the old Phil- 
osophers ; their successors said nature did no such 
thing and proved it. We can point to farmers as a 
class residing within one hundred miles of the city 
of Philadelphia, who let their corn land rest every 
alternate year, while the farmers in Pennsylvania 
found out long ago that they could not afford their 
lands any such indulgence; each field must pro- 
duce a crop annually and respond liberally to good 
treatment. This is the course to be pursued in 
peach growing and this is what we intend to do. 
We have found out long ago through dearly bought 
experience that the system of" masterly inactivity" 
never did nor never will pay in farming at least. 
Whether the peach is a long lived or a short lived 
tree, or a large tree or a small tree we shall not 
stop here to enquire, but we intend to make it pro- 
duce as long at least as our faithful horse labors on 
the farm, or our generous dairy cow affords us milk 
and what more could we ask of the peach ? With 
care and exemption from disease we may double 
the period of its production, for such is its lon- 
gevity in the healthy districts not one hundred 



AND ITS DISEASE. 73 

miles south of Philadelphia, that we can reason- 
ably look for a more extended limit. Why then 
should not the peach be permitted a place on the 
farm, and raised to the dignity of a new staple for 
Pennsylvania, and at once for the counties con- 
tiguous to our great markets supplying the annual 
want which is now supplied from adjoining States ? 
From the quick return of the crop under careful 
culture of four short years, the six counties of Del- 
aware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Berks and 
Lancaster, may reap a rich harvest from the pro- 
duct of the peach orchard, increasing yearly, to 
meet the increasing consumption and in a little 
while yielding more in profits than any other branch 
of farm industry, not excepting Lancaster's great 
staple — tobacco. 



PEACH BORER, &a 

The Peach worm or borer is a four winged in- 
sect, wasp like in shape, and of a steel blue color. 
It deposits its eggs from early in the summer until 
fall, near the ground around the base of the tree. 
The young larva or worm enters the bark at the 
root of the tree and for the whole year subsisting 
on and ringing the tree if not attended to, and in 
the spring having finished its ravages encases itself 
in a gum and saw dust like envelope or cocoon, 
under the bark or just beneath the earth, around 
the door of its premises, soon to change from pupa 
to insect life. It rarely happens that healthy trees 
are entirely destroyed by it unless greatly neglec- 
ted. As it confines its depredations to the bark 
not entering the wood it is easily captured and de- 
stroyed on examination in the fall if carefully done, 
and the larva removed by a sharp pointed knife ; 
and about an ounce of hard soap firmly rubbed 
around the base of the tree an inch or so beneath 
the surface and if about the same quantity be ap- 
plied to the place injured by the worm or in the 
incision made by the knife it would be of great 
benefit in healing over the wound and giving 
growth and vigor to the tree. 

The potash in this case has its direct application 



AND ITS DISEASE. 75 

to the sap circulation and is the very kind of food 
the little wiry surface roots are looking after in the 
soil to carry to the limbs, leaves and fruit. Here 
again is an application of the " Chinese system'' of 
manuring the tree instead of the soil. These two 
ounces of soap (potash) will do more good to the 
tree than a half a bushel of ashes sown on the bare 
surface of the ground broadcast, and it will be as 
effective^in keeping off the borer through the season. 
The cheapest and most efficient and expeditious 
way to keep an orchard clear of .the peach worm 
or borer, is the plan above recommended of re- 
moving it with a knife and applying an ounce or 
two of cheap hard soap. The application of the 
soap, while it repels the insect and borer is a pow- 
erful stimulant to the tree, and acts quickly and 
efficiently. Other enemies that commit their de- 
predations on the limbs, branches and leaves of 
the tree, though slight compared to the yellows, 
such as curled leaf, mildew, &c., (fee, destructive to 
small limbs, call for their remedies also. Strong 
soap suds, or a solution of potash and urine will 
destroy mildew, fungi, aphides, bark insects, &c. 
Whatever is effective to the root is also beneficial 
to the branches. I have always found whitewash 
sufficient, and in looking at the many recommen- 
dations by practical Pomologists I find they all 
make lime the leading ingredient, and it seems that 
lime and potash are indeed about all that is re- 
quired to produce the required effect, which is to 



76 THE PEACH 

destroy the parasitic agents, insects and fungi on 
the limbs, body and leaves of the tree. A good 
wash for the limbs and body of the tree is a half a 
peck of unslacked lime, one quart of soft soap, and 
pour on this warm water until it comes to the con- 
sistence of whitewash, and apply with a brush. If 
the whitewash is objectionable it can be changed 
to any color desired. Others have recommended 
about the same composition ; adding, however, sul- 
phur, soot and various compounds, but the vital 
destructive agents in all such washes are the lime 
and potash. 



PRUNING, 

I have already elsewhere remarked that the 
peach really requires very little of what is gener- 
ally understood as pruning or trimming after the 
head of the tree is properly formed, except to keep 
all sprouts or shoots cut or rubbed off as they ap> 
pear springing from the roots at the collar of the 
tree or from the main body. The first pruning or 
trimming is to the young tree, after it arrives from 
the nursery and before planting, which has been 
fully described. The system of shortening the 
branches and limbs as practised among amateurs,, 
gardeners and small growers, though employed to 
but a limited extent, if judiciously applied, is pro- 
ductive of very satisfactory results. It is, indeed, 
but 2k counterpart to plowing, which is a shorten- 
ing in of the roots ; both performing important 
parts in perpetuating thrift, productiveness and 
life of the tree, and more particularly in dis- 
eased districts, and under the present system of 
peach growing which has undergone but little 
change of importance for the past fifty years at 
least, the tree for a little time producing, though 
holding out but a false hope, then lingering and 
dying under its fatal disease the yellows. In such 
cases this double cutting in by the plow at the 



78 THE PEACH 

roots and the knife at the limbs, destroying or 
palliating for a time to a considerable extent the 
incipient stage of the disease in the tree, whether 
it arises from the agency of an insect or from the 
ravages of a parasitic fungi ; in either case it af- 
fects the body and branches as well as the roots of 
the tree. While the plow cuts and turns up the 
entire network of surface roots, and destroys as 
well the active agent of disease, the knife performs 
a like office by cutting in the limbs and branches, 
destroying to a large extent the active agent there, 
thus divesting the tree to the extent of the loss of 
its diseased roots and branches of the fell enemy, 
leaving the tree in its full flow of sap to throw out 
its thousands of new surface roots as feeders to 
work in the more healthy soil which has just been 
turned down by the plow. The shortened limbs 
in the new growth now in active sympathy with 
the roots, respond in a more he^althy current of 
sap — the life-blood of the tree^n a vigorous 
growth of wood and root for another year of pro 
ductiveness. 

This system of culture of the peach tree, plow- 
ing and cutting in the branches, with the addition 
of a bold operation in eradicating the diseased 
trees, if any, as they appear, attended by its re- 
versing effects of health and returning vigor, is 
one among the strong evidences that this infection 
is caused by fungi. A pruning of the roots and a 
judicious cutting of the branches and limbs in the 



AND ITS DISEASE. 79 

way I have pointed out, and for the reason as- 
signed, and even in the application of remedial 
agents, prevention of the disease would be more 
benefit to the orchard than any blind empirical 
course of the highest culture that could be 
adopted. 

The large peach-growers, most of whom are on 
the healthy side of the peach-dividing line between 
the North and South, are exempt from the evils 
referred to, and they have not adopted this course 
of shortening in to any extent, leaving the orchard 
after the proper heading, pretty much to its natu- 
ral growth, attending rather to the necessary thin- 
ning out of all intruding sprouts, and removing 
dead and dying branches, leaving the tree as de- 
scribed by one of our distinguished Pomologists, 
"when in fruit with bending slender branches in 
graceful curves, so as to open the spreading heads 
and let in the sun and air to color up the fruit, 
all through the middle of the tree as well as the 
outside." "This is the plan," he further observes, 
"which is found to work much better than head- 
ing the tree in." As this mode, it seems, has be- 
come almost a universal system and has worked 
well, and having its convenience, it will be contin- 
ued there with large peach growers, while the 
heading-in system will be practised North among 
amateurs, gardeners and small producers. It is 
evident that a tree judiciously cut in, and the fruit 
thinned in years of overbearing, will produce fruit 



80 THE PEACH 

■under good cultivation of increased size and im- 
proved in quality, which will command a much 
higher price in the market than the general crop 
under ordinary care. 

*These are all questions that enter into the con- 
sideration of labor, expense and time consumed, 
and are for each one to decide for himself. The 
active, energetic, vigilant and farsighted man in 
the peach, as well as in every other enterprise, 
will avail himself of all the advantages to be de- 
rived to the extent of his ability, and will adopt 
such a system as will prove to the greatest ad- 
vantage between expense and profit. 

* "Well directed pruning is one of the most useful, and if 
ill directed, it is among the most mischevious operations that 
can take place in application to a tree. 



THE VALUE OF PEACH GROWING. 

There is no crop that can be raised with less la- 
bor and expense, and a quicker return, than that 
of the peach, and none that will give a greater re- 
turn for the capital and labor employed. The peach 
farms in Upper Delaware and Maryland, have re- 
turned to their owners the most fabulous amounts 
for their investments, far exceeding in profit any 
other staple crop that has been raised in the Mid- 
dle States, and on a scale never before heard of in 
this or any other country. Some of the orchards 
containing from 1,000 to 1,800 acres have netted 
their owners from $20,000 to $30,000 annually. A 
peach orchard in New Castle county, Delaware, of 
400 acres, netted the owner in one crop, $38,000, 
One in Kent county, Maryland, of some 600 acre?, 
produced a crop paying $31,000, and the same or- 
chard in 1879, yielded $42,000. In 1873, the Dela- 
ware Peach Growers' Association, reported that 
there were sent from the Delaware peninsula to the 
northern markets of Philadelphia, and New York, 
1,288,500 baskets of peaches, or 2,577 car loads by 
the railroad. Adding the quantity shipped by 
steamers and sailing vessels, and the amount canned. 



82 THE PEACH 

the actual quantity amounted, in the aggregate, to 
2,000,000 of baskets. In 1872, the whole district, 
comprising the Eastern Shore of Maryland, mar- 
keted, 3,500,000 baskets. The late Col. Wilkins, 
on Chester river, Kent county, Maryland, had 1,350 
acres in with peach trees, numbering 137,000, pro- 
ducing in bearing years from $30,000 to $40,000 
annually. In the State of Michigan peach grow- 
ing is carried on to a considerable extent, along the 
sliores of the lake, some sixty miles from Chicago, 
and furnishes the fruit to the city and surrounding 
towns. It is reported that Mr. A. T. Dykeman, 
President of the Horticultural Society of the State, 
in 1873, sold peaches to the amount of $10,000 
from sixty-five acres, and in 1872 a grower from 
six acres received $1,700. 

Peaches are grown to a fine profit in Wisconsin, 
for Chicago. All these western districts, including 
Ohio, Indiana and other States, complain of the 
ravages of the yellows, and the Legislature of Wis- 
consin has even passed an act to prevent the spread 
of the disease, and I am informed that the law works 
well. Thousands of dollars have been invested by 
individual enterprise in planting and cultivating the 
pear, and although we hear, in every direction, of 
its failure in dwarf trees, still the markets seem to 
be pretty well supplied through the fruit season, 
yet at low prices, and particularly when it comes 
in competition with the peach, which, during the 
past season, was very marked. I noticed in the 



AND ITS DISEASE. 83? 

market at West Chester, and also in Philadelphia,, 
baskets of first class Bartlett pears, in fine condi- 
tion, by the side of Delaware peaches ; the pears 
were going off slowly at fifty cents per basket, 
while the peaches were readily bringing seventy- 
five cents. As a market fruit for production and 
profit the pear pales before the peach — the expense 
and extra culture required in producing good pears 
is never returned in the product to half the profits 
of the peach — and again the long time required be- 
fore it is brought into a bearing condition, is one 
of the great*drawbacks to pear culture. 

He who plants pears, 
Plants for his heirs. 

But notwithstanding all these disadvantages to 
be met with by the enthusiast in pear culture, I 
have, at different times, set out some 3,000 trees, 
dwarf and standard, for orchard culture, but they 
have not been satisfactory. The pear is sold by 
the single specimen, while the peach is sold by the 
crate or basket. Many of the large estates in 
Lower Maryland and Delaware, which were orig- 
inally purchased for a few dollars per acre, are now 
fortunes to their owners. On my last visit to the 
Ray bold orchards, at Delaware city, I was informed 
by the Colonel, that he had then some 700 acres in 
peach trees, and some 500 acres were then in bear- 
ing. Crosby Morton, on the Chester river, at Round 
Top, had some 1,000 acres in trees, and he informed 



8J: THE PEACH 

me that in a settlement between him and his part- 
ner of the receipts of the season's crop they divided 
near $50,000 between them. These net profits from 
these large orchards seem immense, but smaller 
growers greatly exceed in the rate of profits, owing 
to the greater and more economical facility of 
handling, and the ability of doing it, as everything 
can be managed with system and economy, and 
without the loss that occurs from dependence upon 
others. The encouraging feature of the peach busi- 
ness is in its almost unlimited extent and ever in- 
creasing demand, and necessarily so from the un- 
limited wants of our improving towns and coun- 
try. Peaches are marketed by the millions of bas- 
kets, where apples and other fruits are counted 
only by the thousands. The large peach grower 
must be a landholder ; and, like the merchant, he 
has his large aggregate profits, and correspondingly 
large expenses and losses in the management of 
business, while the small peach grower, in most 
cases, in counties contiguous to large cities, would 
manage the orchard and its products under his own 
eye from the field to the market, making the best 
of everything and doubling his profits. The great 
peach growers of Delaware and Maryland are looked 
upon as the Wanamakers of the orchards, though 
with goods not " marked," while the small pro- 
ducer has his brands for superior quality on the 
cheek of his ripe, luscious fruit, to be disposed of 
in a comparatively retail market. The one sells 



AND ITS DISEASE. 85 

ia^the field, by the orchard or the crop, the other 
by the basket and the peck, obtaining larger prices 
and better profits. 

If this should maat the eye of any one who has 
become tired or worn out with farming, and is de- 
sirous of disposing of his farm, I would advise 
him to plant from ten to fifteen acres in peach 
trees, and at the same time a suitable portion with 
apple trees among the peaches at proper distances 
apart. Such an improvement in two or three 
years, or just at bearing, will secure a purchaser 
at a greatly enhanced price, paying more than one 
thousand per cent, on the cost of the orchard. In 
this I have had a great deal of experience, as I 
have never failed in putting in a good orchard as 
the first improvement on the many farms I have 
purchased, if I found they wanted it. I have found 
it as a general rule that nothing is more attractive 
to farmers and their families than a good apple 
and peach orchard just coming into bearing. The 
purchaser in this can see at once the interest on 
his mortgage if purchased on a credit, as nine- 
tenths of farms are, and if an orchard of considera- 
ble size, the entire principal too by the day of 
maturity. If you have such a farm for sale, or 
one more particularly wearing out or thin in soil 
and unsightly for selling, take my advice, plant 
an orchard, for it will be not only a benefit to you 
but a lasting advantage to your purchaser. 



VARIETIES OF PEACHES FOR CTJLTL 
VATION, 

From the great varieties of peaches recommend- 
ei in the different peach growing districts of the 
country, selections have been made of such as 
have been found on trial as best adapted to the 
different localities. 

In all such selections regard should be paid to 
those combining the elements of good marketable 
fruit, good keepers, healthy, large, fine color, and 
of vast importance, to be good carriers, standing 
safe transportation to market, and such as ripen 
in regular succession from the earliest to the latest, 
extending through the peach season from about 
the middle of July to the middle or last of Octo 
ber, in a region near the city of Philadelphia. 

The following list contains tbe most of the lead- 
ing varieties grown and fruited in the peach dis- 
tricts of Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, 
and have for the most part been well adapted to 
the Eastern and Western States. Many of the 
kinds named have been standard varieties for the 
last thirty to fifty years and over, and have not 
been superceded in their good qualities as paying 
market fruits. Others have been introduced with- 



AND ITS DISEASE. 87 

ia a later pieriod for superior excellence, such as 
Crawford's Late and early Beeves' Favorite, Moun- 
tain Eose, Stump the World, &c. We have now 
a class of new early peaches, mostly from the seed 
of the Hale's Early, that ripen in Pennsylvania in 
July. Among them are Alexander, Amsden's 
June, Downing, Early Beatrice. These and other 
varieties are offered by our nurserymen, and al- 
though they have not as yet been sufficiently 
tested, some of them offer well, and are worthy of 
early trial, as they commence the peach season 
nearly a month in advance of the Early York, 
which some thirty years back was about the first 
peach in the market, its season here in Pennsylva- 
nia being from about the fourth to the tenth of 
August. The Early Alexander was ripe herein 
1879, from the 15th to the 23d of July. The Ams- 
den's June and Downing are even earlier. It is to 
be hoped that they all may prove more valuable 
than their parent, "Hale's Early," which is now 
in Maryland and Delaware as well as in Pennsyl- 
vania,, pretty generally supplanted by more relia- 
blie varieties. I feel hopeful that some of these 
new varieties will prove themselves entirely re- 
liable. 

Name. Color. Quality. Ripe. 

Amsden's June. Red Good . July. 

Alexander Red Good, July. 

Downing Red and White. .Good July. 

Wilder Red and White. .Good size July. 

Beatrice Red and White. .Small July. 



88 THE PEACH 

Name. Color. Quality. Ripe. 

Hale's Early . . . Red and White . . Rots badly Aug. 

Troth's Early. .Red and White.. .Fine Market Peach. .Aug. 
Mount'n Rose.. Red and White... Good Market Peach.. Aug. 

Early York. . . .Red and White... Popular Aug. 

Crawf d's Early Yellow ... Large and Good Aug. 

Yellow Rare 

Ripe Yellow Large and Good Aug. 

Morris FavoriteRed and White... Large and Good Aug. 

Oldmixon Red and White... Large and Fine Aug. 

Foster Yellow.. Like Crawford Early. Aug. 

George IV Yellow Beautiful Aug. 

Reeves' Fav'te. Yellow Large, Splendid Sept. 

Fox Seedling . Red and White. . . Ex cellent bearer Sept. 

Crawford's Late Yellow Splendid, Valuable . .Sept. 

Shipley's Red... Red and White... Valuable Sept. 

Grosse MignoneRed and White. ..Fine peach Sept. 

Stump the 

World Red and White.. .Very fine Sept. 

Susquehanna.... Yellow Very large Sept. 

Ward's Late, 

' Free Red and White... Popular Sept. 

Patterso n 's 

White White Very fine Sept. 

Crocket's Late 

White White Great bearer Sept. 

Free Heath. . . .White Good Sept. 

Free Smock Yellow Valuable Oct. 

Salway . ... Yellow Oct. 

Late Heath White Valuable Oct. 

Headly Ripening after the Heath. 



EXTRACTS 

From the Proceedings of the Penjisijlvania Fruit 
Growers' Sjciety^ at its Twenty-first Annual Meet 
ing, held at Bethlehem, Pa., January 21 aiid 22 
1880. Judge Stitzel, President, of Reading, Pa. 
in the Chair. 

Mr. Thomas W. Harve}', of Chester County 
Chairman of the Committee on Orcharding, re 
ported with other interesting matter that Mr. John 
Kutter, of West Chester, had prepared an exhaus 
tive paper on the Peach and its diseases, contain 
ing an experience of over thirty years in its cul 
tare in Chester and Delaware counties, Pennsyl 
vania, and in the State of Maryland, showing that 
peaches can be more successfully grown and put 
into the markets in better condition and to much 
greater profit from these counties than from Dela- 
ware and Maryland, and he hoped that it would 
be asked for by the Society, whereupon Messrs. 
Harvey, Sattherwaite and Noble were appointed a 
committee to wait on Mr. Kutter and to invite him 
to give his experience and views to the Society 
on peach growing. 



90 THE PEACH 

Mr. Josiah Hoopes said "the election of new 

members, he believed, is always in order, and the 

man I now propose to elect, twenty years ago, did 

more than any one in the organization and early 

prosperity of the Society, and he now moved that 

John Kutter, Esq., of West Chester, be elected an 

honorary member of this Society. Mr. Eutter was 

elected by acclamation. 

^ 4e -jf * « 

The Committee on Mr. Butter's paper on Peach 
Growing, reported that the paper referred to was a 
manuscript of a treatise on the culture of the Peach 
and its diseases, remedies, &c., just prepared for 
publication, that it was too voluminous for a single 
address, and recommended that extracts be read 
from it. The Secretary now read such extracts as 
were selected. They were lengthy and very ex- 
haustive. These, with Mr. Butter's very able ad- 
dress before the Society, presented clearly his 
mode of culture, treatment of the diseases of the 
Peach, &;c. 

He gave a brief history of the introduction of 
the peach into the American colonies, adaptability 
of our soil and climate to its growth, and great 
productiveness, continuing in health and vigor to 
an old age, affording annually its delicious tribute 
as a luxury to the early colonists. About the 
commencement of the American Bevolution a 
change suddenly came over the health and pro- 
ductiveness of the tree, first appearing near Phila- 



AND ITS DISEASE. 91 

dejphia, as reported by Judge Peters, Mr. Heston 
a ad other peach growers of that day, and this 
change they spoke of was that fatal disease the 
yellows. It has continued its ravages on the 
orchard with almost unremitted virulence ever 
since, and owing to the disease, peach growers 
were discouraged in extensive planting in Penn- 
sylvania for market purposes. New Jersey, Dela- 
ware and Maryland became the peach growing 
regions to supply our markets, and for the last 
fifty years the two last named States have enjoyed 
an almost entire monopoly of the peach market in 
Philadelphia and New York. Mr. Eutter next 
treated of his successful system of peach growing 
for years in Chester and Delaware counties, both 
diseased districts and subject to the yellows, show- 
ing that under his treatment peaches were grown 
successfully, and more so than in the healthy dis- 
tricts in Southern Maryland, and with much 
greater profit to the producer. The yellows is a 
specific disease affecting the peach, and the cause 
assigned, and pretty generally now conceded, is a 
parasitic fungi, and the remedies are found in 
caustic alkalies. These remedies were elaborately 
and exhaustively treated. He gave a chemical 
analysis of the peach, apple and pear tree, showing 
that the three great and leading elements were 
lime, potash and phosphate of lime, and that the 
fertilizing elements required for one were the 
proper- food for the others ; that two of these three 



92 THE PEACH 

elements, lime and potash, which contributed sa 
largely in their composition and healthful growth, 
were the very agents, when properly prepared and 
applied, that proved destructive to all the enemies 
of the tree, whether from insects or parasitic fungi» 
Quick or caustic lime, potash, guano and all the 
ammoniacal alkalies, act as purifiers and produce 
the desired result — the entire destruction of these 
diseases, whether in the body, limbs or roots of 
the tree ; in the one case by the application of a 
wash, and to the roots a treatment of lime, which 
is preferred to ashes on account of its cheapness, 
convenience and access, and as favorably known 
to every farmer as an indispensible agent in the 
fertilizing of his soil. The peach tree, he said, is 
an improver of the soil, and lands of medium fer- 
tility are to be preferred for peach orchards, as the 
ground will continue to improve yearly under cul- 
tivation. 

The peach is the least expensive crop on the 
farm ; this brings peach growing within the capa- 
city of all as a cheap, available and profitable crop. 
The successful growing of this delicious fruit is of 
the highest importance to every one, from the 
farmer with his broad acres and his thousands of 
trees, to the town, village and country house- 
keeper who has a yard or lawn, however limited. 
Each can become his own peach grower on a suffi- 
cient scale to supply with a few thrifty trees his 
entire wants in this delicious fruit. In a few short 



AND ITS DISEASE. 9S 

years the farmers of the six eastern counties of the 
State, Lancaster, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, 
Bucks and Berks, within a few hours each of the 
market, will be found relieving us from our de- 
pendence on Delaware and Maryland, our two 
two neighboring States, which have enjoyed a mo- 
nopoly of our city markets for the last fifty years. 
The result of Mr. Eutter's peach growing in 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, on a large scale for 
a series of years — the first in a district diseased 
with the yellows, and the other in a healthy location 
not in any way affected with the disease — is infor- 
mation that is vastly to the advantage of Pennsyl- 
vania in quantity and quality of fruit. The un- 
certainty of the peach crop is increased as we 
leave Pennsylvania and proceed South, even into 
Georgia and Florida. Again, the fruit shipped 
from Maryland, he said, is gathered in an imma- 
ture state, quite hard, and before it has acquired 
that sweet saccharine taste which is only found in 
a ripe peach. This immature condition is re- 
quired for peaches handled so frequently and 
roughly in their long transportation. They ripen 
on their way to market and never attain the rich, 
luscious taste of a fully matured peach. The peach 
is perishable at maturity and requires a near mar- 
ket and careful handling. As to the profits in 
peach growing between the North and South — a 
distance of one hundred and fifty miles — there is 
no approximate comparison, Pennsylvania having 



91 THE PEACH 

SO greatly the advantage of nearness of market and 
superior condition of fruit. 

At the conclusion of Mr. Butter's address, on 
motion of H. M. Engle, of Marietta, the following 
resolution was passed : 

Resolved^ That the hearty thanks of this Society 
iire hereby tendered to Mr. John Eutter, of West 
Chester, for his generosity in giving us the benefit 
of his most valuable and long experience in peach 
culture. 



INDEX. 



Introduction, - - - - 3 

General Remarks on the Peach, - - 5 

First Appearance of the Yellows, - 10 
Treatment of Peach Farm near West 

Chester, Pa. - - - - 22 
Difficulties to be Overcome, • - 29 
Experience in Peach Growing in Mary- 
land, - - - - - 34 
Location and Soil for Peach Culture, 38 
Directions for Planting, etc., - • 40 
Advantages of Peach Culture, - - 47 
Manures and Remedial Agents, - • 60 
Benefits of Potash, etc., - - • 55 
Quick Lime the Great Remedy, - - 59 
Indications of Yellows in the Peach, - 65 
Peach Borer, etc.. - - - -74 
Pruning, - - - - - 77 
The Value of Peach Growing, - - 81 
Varieties of Peaches for Cultivation, 86 
Extracts from Proceedings of Fruit 

Growers' Convention, - - - - 89 

Index, 95 





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